Whoosh

Winter is here again, which means snow on the ground, shoveling the driveway and the sidewalk, freezing all your bits off and of course skiing!

Last weekend the ski hill opened for the first time for the season and we managed to make sure that we all got a little bit of time in on the one run that was open.

Last year we hired skis and equipment for the kids, but this year, after doing a bit of research and financial reasoning, we bought them skis. Discount sales and the fact that we’ll get two years use out of them actually made it more economic. It was interesting to see the varying levels of excitement at having their very own skis.

Michael was keen to get them, though he intends to do more snow-boarding this year (particularly in Fort Mac, saving the skis for our trip to Kimberly …24 days and counting!)

Sam wasn’t really interested at all, just happy to have hired skis because he didn’t really see himself skiing that much (last year he racked up the ‘most minutes spent in the lodge award)

Tom was keen, but thinking about the snowboarding as well and then of course there was Emily, who practically leapt out of her skin at the prospect.

Following the actual purchase of them, Michael was happy, Sam was reservedly happy (they’d not had bindings in stock for the skis that he’d wanted and so he’d settled for a pair the same as Michael’s) Thomas was over the moon because he has twin tipped skis so that he can go backwards easily and Emily was happy as a pig in the proverbial because her skis are pink and purple with flowers on them!.

Saturday was the day to test them all out, so we picked them up from the sports shop with their bindings newly applied and headed off to the ski hill where we had our photos taken for our season passes and took off down the slopes.

It was a success all round. Michael only managed two runs before having to head off to hockey, but was happy with his skis. To my utter astonishment, Sam elected to continue skiing rather than go to Michael’s hockey, a complete change to where things had ended last year.

Thomas was in his element, off jumps and skiing backwards on his second run for the year and after a up and down (as in fall down, stand up) start on her first run, Emily happily made her way down subsequent runs with only one or two falls. Not bad considering the extra length on her skis this year! And she only fell over at the chair and held the entire lift line up once.

In talking with Sam at the end of the day, he was very happy to say that he hadn’t enjoyed it last year because his boots hadn’t been very comfortable and he didn’t like his skis that much, but that this year in his own boots and on his own skis, he’s enjoying it. Yay!

Bring on the big runs!