Just call us "The Family that skis"

Since we are now ski owners this weekend we went to Sunrise for our first of many family ski trips. It was Rachel's first time, and Sam and I haven't skied in 7 years so we were very excited to say the least. Sam's brother Mike drove up to join us, which worked out really well. Sam and Mike took off first thing and were able to enjoy the morning skiing together, while Rachel and I both went to ski school. I have only been twice before, and with that being 7 years ago, I thought I better get up to speed if I plan on being anywhere near Sam.

After my lesson we all met up and picked up Rachel and took her down the bunny hill to check out her skills. She says her favorite part is riding the lift. They had a decent bunny hill with it's own little lift. Here she is at the top of the bunny hill.

Her technique

It may look like I was being helpful here..but in reality it was more like a two-person human pretzel. Picture a beginner trying to help out a first-timer when they fall and their skiis are all all twisted. I will admit it...and yet I am grateful that none of these pictures Sam took captured it so there is no actual proof.

She actually did way better when we let her just go solo. She can turn a little, but not enough to slow down very much, so once she got going pretty fast she would sometimes fall. She would start to cry and I would think "oh, she is done. She is not going to want to keep skiing" But then I would ask her if she wanted to be finished, and she would say, "No Mom, I want to keep going until I can ski all the way down and not fall."

Uncle Mike volunteered to stay with her for a little while so Sam and I could go skiing together once. She even taught her a thing or two while we were gone. My favorite is when I got back she looked over and pointed to the big mountain, and she said with attitude "With a little bit more practice, that mountain will be mine!" A little suprised, I asked "Is that so?" and she said "Well, that is what Mike said." So here is Rachel and Uncle Mike in their video debut.


By the end of the day she could ski all the way down the bunny hill without even falling. My favorite was the last one where she had enough momentum to ski right past the line to get back on the lift. Then she said she wanted to ski all the way to the car. I told her it was too hard since it was too flat. She begged, so I gave her my poles to help her out. When she was about 3 feet from the sidewalk (and after that a flight of stairs) I told her that was as far as she could go, and she said once again, 'no, I am going to keep going.' And then she gave the poles one more push and shot forward, I of course then dropped my boots and my skiis in attempt to rush over to stop her from flying down the steps, but thankfully she came to a stop once she landed on the pavement. Everyone nearby got a kick out of that, so glad we could provide some comic relief.