Interestingly, I have a dream to go on a ski vacation. You might find that strange, seeing that I can travel to the best skiing on the planet in 25 minutes from my front porch. But still, I really want to go on a ski vacation for a week or so with my family. Maybe, Tahoe or BC. You know the whole, ski in, ski out lodge thing could really be up my alley. Here is the kicker. In this dream I take my family, Me, Melissa and my 5 darling children. The best part of the dream is that on this ski vacation all of my children can self manage and are excited to go skiing. Boots, hats, gloves, skis, poles, goggles, you name it they can get ready themselves, get their gear to the snow and then proceed to smoke me down the mountain. The only persons boots I want to buckle in this dream are my own and of course, Melissa. If I were take this dream and distill it down to one image it would be this: We are boarding a 6-pack chair lift and my wife and 5 fore-mentioned darlings board the chair laughing and genuinely enjoying each others company. I get on the next chair, by myself and get to watch 12 skis, 12 poles, 6 helmets, 12 gloves, etc that I didn't put on (except for Melissa's boots of course) gracefully glide up the mountain, whilst I reflect on the pain and sacrifice to get to this juncture. This is my magic moment......
In case you were wondering, The Stringham Family is not there yet. Oh, man.
This post could be a guide to how to execute a ski day with 7 souls 5 of which are 12 and under. I think a lot of people think I'm crazy (I am), but today, even I thought "This is not worth it." Cue vision of dream here to help stay on target.
My stated goal is to have a family that enjoys recreational activities together, especially a "culture of skiing." We go to Warren Miller, we shop Labor Day sales, we plan over snow reports. To this point I have driven this. But there was a slight shift in the "force," perhaps you felt it. When the snow started to fly earlier int he week, my girls (Manth and Milsey) started to say things like "Dad, when can we go skiing?" "Oh my gosh, look at that powder" this morning as I was laying in bed I overheard Samantha and Amelia talking, one said to the other "I am so excited for today" response "Why?", "We get to go skiing!" "yeah, it is going to be awesome!" Bless their hearts! Let's go skiing!
The one thing that you need to know when you are a good skier that then has a family your standard of a "great" ski day changes drastically. There is no "first chair", very rarely is there any powder. There is lots of "edgie-wedgies" (not the same thing as happens to your underwear), there are lots of gear explosions as witnessed
here. And there is a ton, I mean a ton of time spent prepping, organizing, checking, re-checking, finding again after Peter pulls stuff out of bags, stuff. Every skier does the quick-checklist as they pull out of the drive way "Skis, boots, poles, gloves, hat, goggles." Times that by 7 and you have a task on your hand. This clearly falls into my territory. As we get ready to go skiing, I look to Melissa for help, and, as you all know, she is incredibly supportive of all my "endeavors." But on skiing, she kind of looks at me like "hey, this your gig, dude." I am OK with that. Anyway, I pack, which is doubly difficult for the first day of the season. I have a list of 13 essentials everyone needs to go to the mountain, times that by 7... you have 91 items that have to be found and put in a bag. Our rule is that every kid has their own ski bag, in which the 13 items go and essentially stay there all ski season. Melissa, loves to organize, they are even color coded. Makes it very easy, well..... not easy, but better. We load the gear and it's off to the mountain. Being the fun dad that I am, on the way up we drive past the "red church" untouched parking lot, time for "doughnuts," Not the kind you eat. Kids (Jonas, Samantha, Amelia, Megan and Peter), you are not allowed to do this. Unless, I am in the car, of course. Melissa quote: "You can never take the teenager out of the man." Nope. Anywhooo..... up to Brighton.
We arrive, no car sickness (this is an improvement). The second great phase of pain. Assembly. It is cold. Really cold, we play the count every digit the temperature is falling game up the canyon. Ummmm... it reached "0." We did score the best parking spot in the lot, however. So in the assembly phase, you take out everything you diligently just put in the bag on all of these very wiggly, and complaining loudly (because of the cold) children. As a father, you can't win here. There is no order that will satisfy everyone. I have tried oldest to youngest, youngest to oldest, we have moved to if you are out of the car and not whining, you get help. Otherwise, it is up to you (insert vision of dream here).
Everyone dressed, I think this took us about 20 minutes and up to the lodge, another 15 minutes. Envision the 10th mountain division in formation, hiking up the mountain, preparing a frontal attack. I sent everyone up to the lodge because I had to go pick up my employee pass. Remember that everyone was dressed. By the time I got my pass (10 minutes) and I found them, most of them had their boots, helmets, goggles, socks and gloves off. Seriously? I had a choice, Re-dress or eat. Eat. If you have learn anything from this post and you are interested in having a "ski culture" in your home. Take this advice. Eat early and often. And..... Throw all nutritional concerns out the window. We had fries, 1 chocolate chip cookie, one sugar cookie and brownie for lunch. Kids love it. And always have a pocket of chocolate. It is amazing the power of a Crunch bar to fight back impending meltdowns. Sure it is bribery, but you know what? It works.
While I am in the advice mode.... Do your best, but plan on cursing, hopefully only under your breath, but often aloud at least one time during a family ski day. It is inevitable. It is a great way to teach repentance ("Daddies aren't perfect, and sometimes get tired of carrying all your CRAP!") Sorry, I digress. Notice, we have not even put our skis on yet. Focus on patience. A "great" family ski day has very little to do with actual skiing. So throughout this process, Jonas decided he didn't want to ski today, so he was nominated to "watch" (I use that term loosely) Peter in the lodge. Okay, time to redress (another 15 minutes) and off to ski. At this point we actually get our skis on and head to.... the bunny hill.
The Explorer lift (affectionately known as "Exploder" by the Brighton Ski School staff) is where we will get our "ski legs" under us. This part is actually really fun. Samantha and Amelia take off. Samantha skiing beautiful parallel turns, Amelia bombing the wedge, but pretty excited to show Melissa around. I skied with Duff and she was successfully playing "red-light, green-light." Duff and I get to the bottom and Duffy says "Dad, that was so fun, can we go again" I say "I love you, yep." Up at the top, I get "Dad, I'm tired, can we go home?" Here is the test. More advice. Avoid temptation to say "D@#$ IT! I packed for 3 hours and hauled all your stuff up here for 1 run? I don't think so! We are skiing, until those little short legs fall off!" Say something like "You want some Crunch Bar? We can go back to the lodge and get some chocolate." The typical response is "Ooh yeah!" By the way Samantha, while she lapped us a couple of times, is already heading back. I take Duff in, leave her in Jonas and Samantha's capable hand and head back out.
Amelia earns the "trooper" award. Lapped Exploder 7-8 times, decided she wanted to go up Majestic, bails at the last second because of cold feet. Hike her back to the lodge. Melissa also is a little cold but motivated to get back out to ski. While I take a run she hides in the ski school so the kids don't see her. Yup, we hide from our kids.
I swing back around and we take a run together. Just the two of us. I think the first time since 1994. On the lift she said that Amelia told her "When I am an adult, I am leaving my kids behind and skiing with The Husband" The 3 things I get from this statement.... 1) She wants to ski as an adult, 2) I will someday be a grandparent. Wow. 3) She wants to marry a man. Sweet. As we ski down it is great to be with Melissa. When we get down to the lodge, Samantha wants to take another run so Melissa takes her on Majestic. It is now my task to get all the stuff back to the car.
In a family ski trip, if people are warm and happy, keep 'em that way. I start with the gear to the car first. A great investment is a cheap toboggan. We load all the gear (skis and poles) and pull it up to the lodge. So skis and stuff back in toboggan and back to car. Hike from car back to lodge. I take the toboggan with me for children. Climb stairs, find kids, convince it's time to go out in the 0 degree weather back to the car. "You can ride in the sled!" Cheers. Amelia, Duff and Peter in the toboggan, I start to pull. The nice thing about back to the car is you are not typically fighting gravity. I proved that. As we were making the last little pitch into the parking lot, I slipped, fell and let go of the sled. Yep, there they go my 3 youngest children careening down the mountain into to the parking lot. I am running as fast as I can after them, in boots. Amelia has the survival instinct to lean out the back and drag her body in the snow, which makes Duff and Peter fall backwards also. This is a good thing. The dragging weight slows them down enough that they glide gently under a parked PathFinder. Unscathed and unharmed. Man, I wish I had it on tape. I would be $10,000 richer from AFV. Enough to pay for my ski vacation someday.
Get everything loaded up, heat the car up and wait for Samantha and Melissa to join us back at the car. Everyone seems to have a fun day, 3 of 5 fall asleep on the ride down the canyon. Good sign. We stop at the new Five Guys on the way home and eat more french fries. Very good.
Unload, re-pack, put away stuff thinking "I have been working on ski gear for 10 hours now". But, gotta keep the dream alive. Try again on Friday.
Someday, I'm giving it 12 years, Peter will be 13 and I will watch them in the chair in front of me. Then they will unload an all of them will rip it up. It will be so worth it.
Until then anybody want a Crunch Bar?
This is a photo from last year. Same idea. Today we couldn't find the camera and it was too cold to take gloves off for photos anyway.....
