Parenthood - 2020-02-07 Downhill skiing

February 7, 2020

Elizabeth's school was scheduled to go to Vorlage for four all day skiing field trips. Anyone in grade 5 and 6 was able to sign up. Then... labour unrest and work to rule causing the ski trips to be cancelled. Elizabeth has never been downhill skiing and she was super disappointed. I decided that it wasn't fair that the kids be collateral damage, contacted a bunch of her friends and the ski hill and long story short I'm filling my van and we are going skiing on Fridays in February!

Today was our first time out. Elizabeth, Bianca, Harry and Shaughnessey are all beginners (it was Elizabeth's and Bianca's first time on skis!) so we arranged lessons for them. They did their lesson, then joined up with Maddie and Samia skiing on the hill. I was kind of beside myself over the rabbit and managed to forget my ski pants, but luckily it was quite a warm day and I only fell once - getting off the ski lift. I was trying too hard to avoid interfering with Elizabeth and forgot to watch where I was going.

Brendan thought I was hilarious, because after I strapped on my skis and started following some of the other kids I had a moment of "can I still do this?". I used to ski fairly well but after experiencing neurological problems as a result of celiac disease in high school I stopped being able to use poles and so I quit skiing. I haven't been since I was about 16 or 17. Anyway, the kids naturally picked the lift that was furthest away from the chalet to try first. I was trudging along thinking to myself that skiing was MUCH harder work than I remembered. Not sure if my technique was off due to the cross country ski experience I've had or if the snow was abnormally sticky or what but I started to be paranoid that maybe my skis were wrong (did they mishear my weight??) and perhaps I'd get to the top of the hill and not be able to glide down. So then I was having visions of the kids being done their lessons and the instructor wondering where on earth the "supervisor" was. "Maybe I'll wait until afterwards", I told Brendan. Then I watched the kids go up and down the hill about five times in ten minutes and I reckoned maybe I could manage to go down once in twenty even IF my skis were defective. So I got on the lift and just about had a meltdown when I got to the top and discovered that all the runs up there were blue or black. I HAD intended to see if I could still ski by trying out a green run. Anyway luckily I didn't feel I had time to dither so I launched myself down the hill and was relieved to discover that I do indeed still know how to ski. Possibly not the best technique and I'm no daredevil but I can do it.

Amusingly it was a snow day, so a few friends who had initially been offered a spot in the van showed up on the hill as well. The snow day meant that the other school that was supposed to come didn't. So there was hardly anyone else skiing and we definitely didn't have to wait for the lifts. It was a really great first ski experience for Elizabeth and I had fun too.

The only drawback is that the kids did not exactly spend all their time conversing in French as I had hoped. Unfortunately a couple of kids are really excited about talking English which tends to suck all the others into switching languages. At least the lessons are in French!

It was so snowy that dance class got cancelled, so we brought Bianca home with us and introduced her to Just Dance!