Be The Pigeon

A couple years ago , Jo and I decided to take the two older girls skiing for scout ski days. It's not the kind of thing we typically do, for lots of reasons. The day didn't go so well. It was super-de-dooper cold and the kids didn't eat anything good before we started. After one try down the hill, they were done, and so was our day. Last weekend I decided to try my luck once more, but learned from my previous mistakes, maybe. It was again Scout Ski Day, where you can get a lift pass and free lunch for $25. How can you pass on that when it can easily cost triple on a normal day? To boot, Amy is in fifth grade and gets a free pass from the ski people . Double bonus. So we had to go. First, it was just Amy and Misha with Dad this time. A little quality bonding time. Jo doesn't have any love affair with snow. My coworker was kind enough to let us stay at her condo so we could avoid the morning drive and enjoy a more leisurely morning. We wanted to leave by 5,...

Jolayne already beat me to the punch on reporting our trip, so this'll just have to be my version. After many years of idealizing in my mind what it would be like, I finally took Amy and Misha skiing at Copper Mountain last week. Short summary of the trip: reality doesn't always match the idyllic view in the mind's eye! Though we had a great time and came home without any injuries, my visions of tooling down the hill with my girls came off just a little differently. As Jolayne said, it was ridiculously cold. It was below zero at home before we even left, and the predicted high temp on the mountain was something like 15 degrees. We caravaned up the mountain (a 2-3 hour trip most of the time in winter) with friends, but after a trip home to pick up forgotten items and a clogged/frozen windshield washer sprayer (and stop to fix), we finally got into the mountains. Traffic up the freeway was terrible. Apparently people think it's well worth a 30-minute wait to wat...