This winter marked the year when the entire Grover clan were able to downhill ski together. Winnie joined us for her first time as we went to Kelly's for some night skiing on Monday, February 8.
The night turned out to be a comedy of errors. First, Rebekah learned early on (after the boots were on but before the skis were attached) that the boots we had brought for her would in no way work. They hurt her feet. So I took her to the rental hut to borrow some boots. As Bekah was getting outfitted, Ana went down the bunny hill and her new (thrift shopped) boots broke apart. We swapped some things around (Ana wore the boots I was going to wear; I wore the boots Bekah was going to wear), got Bekah's boots, and finally made it to the lifts.
Winnie took to skiing like a natural. Between her experience on cross-country skis and (surprisingly) rollerblades, she was ready to take to the slopes. She went down the bunny hill several times, then decided she was ready for the real deal.
I was her guide down Skier's Lane for the first time. She was a little nervous at the steeper parts, but she did really well ... until she got going too fast and didn't make her pizza slice big enough. (For the non-skiers, beginning skiers are instructed to make a slice of pizza with their skis, meaning they put the tips together and the backs wide. This snow plow will slow/stop the skier.) Winnie zipped down the mountain, screaming in terror until she got to a little rise on the hill and sat down. After sliding on her backside for a while, she finally stopped. I caught up to her and consoled her. As with our other first-time skiers (I swear all of them had this same experience), she asked if there was ANY other way to get down the mountain other than on skis. I told her there wasn't, but she could take her time and I would help her the rest of the way.
We went more slowly, with bigger turns and bigger pizza slices the rest of the way.
She went down a few more times that night, and each time she did better and felt more comfortable on the skis.
Our lift tickets included vouchers for food, so we took a break to get some chicken tenders and nachos. That's when we discovered that Ana's ski binding was jacked up, and it took a screwdriver to get her boot out of the binding. We have since gotten rid of those skis.
We took a day later that month (February 22) to go to Grand Targhee and let the kids run wild on all the runs there. It was incredibly foggy, so we basically stuck around the Shoshone lift and explored all the runs there. Winnie may have been a little cautious in the beginning, but by the end of the day she was tearing down the hill and going through all the kid zones like a master. (Day skiing = more pictures.)
