Hello Monday on a Tuesday – Our Ski Adventure Recap 2023

Happy Tuesday!  I hope everyone enjoyed their long weekend!

We started our weekend on Thursday and headed to northern Michigan for our third year of skiing with the kiddos!  We pulled the kids from school on Thursday afternoon and headed north.  We stopped by to visit our friends, Brian and Kathryn, before heading to the ski resort!  It was so nice to see them, they’re always welcoming.  Kathryn’s parents came over to say goodbye to our friends as they were leaving the next morning for Florida until summer.  It was great seeing them again, too.  Our kids also played with Brian and Kathryn’s little girls, Mari and Kate.  It was a quick visit, but a really good one!

We arrived at the rental shop and got to it with our sizing.  The kids did great and Jane was more excited than we thought she’d be!

We like to rent all of our equipment before the next day so that we’re ready to go in the morning.  Henry and Eliza had lessons at 9 a.m. and Jane had lessons at 12:30, so it was nice to just have everything ready to go!  We valeted our skis and took everything else back to the room.

The night before I laid out every single layer of clothing and the hats, gloves, socks…everything in order so that we would have a smooth transition into the outside!

It was warmer this year than last time…the windchill was in the negatives last year and this year, while the mornings were in the single digits, the sun came out (apparently it was only the third time Northern Michigan had seen the sun since the New Year) and the temps climbed into the 20s with barely any wind…thank goodness.

A quick pic of these three!

Henry and Eliza headed off to lessons with Eric…Eric came in just on time with a coffee in hand and off he went with the kids.  LOL!  He asked them if they’d like to freestyle their lessons.  Bahahaha!  I think Eric was excited to go skiing!  The kids went down a bunch of hills; blue squares right off the bat.  

Jon and I stayed back with Jane.  She wanted so badly to just be able to ski.  At one moment I told Jon to go with Henry and Eliza once their lessons were done.

At one point we headed in and took a quick break because Jane and I were growing a little frustrated, not with each other, but little moments here and there.  I took a deep breath and watched a video on how to teach a little kid how to ski.  LOL!  After watching it, I was determined to make it work for her…honestly, based off the video, I found that it’s all about letting her try and letting her fall, building the confidence and being patient.  Let me tell you, I worked soooo hard with Jane.  I was a little sad that her lessons weren’t until 12:30, because there I was attempting to teach a 3 year old how to ski, when I, myself, am no ski instructor in the least.  There was a lot of picking Jane up, putting her back into her skis, holding and bending down with her while I attempted to help her while skiing along beside her…it was A LOT OF WORK.  Somehow I was able to keep my composure though.  She learned to fall on purpose if she couldn’t stop and I thought this was great.  We headed over to the learning hill, the Magic Carpet, a place I had never used before.  In fact, silly me, I had been using the bigger hill for us to learn all of these years and didn’t realize the other hill wasn’t the actual learning hill…anyhow, I digress.

Once we arrived at the Magic Carpet hill Jane went down a couple of times and she was doing great!  At one point, she wanted to go on the Magic Carpet all alone, so I let her.  Since Jon wasn’t there, I relied on someone to catch her if she fell while at the top…at this point I didn’t have a choice.

Luckily everyone working at this resort is incredibly chill and beyond helpful!!!!

Jane became addicted to this and she went up and down probably twenty times and she was getting the hang of it!  WooHoo!!!

We all met up and headed in for lunch.  At this point Jon, Henry and Eliza had been having a great time on the slopes and Jane and I had accomplished quite a bit over on the Magic Carpet!  So far, so good!

Jane’s lesson came around at 12:30 and her instructor, Andrew, was great.  At first, Jane didn’t want to go, but I promised her I’d stay and watch and that every time she rode the lift I’d give her a kiss…and I did.  🙂

Jon took off with the big kids for about an hour of more skiing while I stayed back.

Once Jane’s lessons ended I FINALLY headed out with Henry and Eliza.  I was already exhausted from skiing even though I hadn’t truly skied yet!

We went up a bunch of hills and I went down my first blue square!!!!

This is the view from a route called, Leprechaun, and the view up here is of Lake Michigan.  Love, love, love it!

We skied a lot and I was almost able to keep up with these two!  We were all tired.

We all headed in for a much needed break.

Jon and I grabbed lattes and at 4 o’clock on the weekends the lobby has hot cocoa and cookies, so of course we helped ourselves to that goodness!

We went swimming at the indoor/outdoor spa and it felt amazing!  My aging bones needed it.

We then ordered pizza and ate in the dining hall.  Luckily we had enough left over for lunch the next day.  Jon took Eliza out for a nighttime ski, Henry stayed in the room and worked on school work (we told him to work on it later, but he was adamant that he finish it) and Jane and I weren’t far away in the basement enjoying a movie night with cookies, popcorn, more treats and juices.  

The room next door had lots of crafts and every game imaginable, so we enjoyed some time crafting together, too.  I was seriously so impressed by how much there was to do!

The next morning was kind of the same.  Lessons were at the same time.  Jon and I flip-flopped our time with the kids.  Jon went with Jane in the morning and I went off with Henry and Eliza.

I had quite a moment on our first ski of the morning.  We went down Leprechaun, a hill I had just gone down the day before, and as I attempted to go down, I became angled in a very awkward position on the hill with my skis and if I had attempted to continue to go down, I would’ve gone down a steep, almost ramp of a hill.  I stopped and fell to the ground.  Henry and Eliza were long gone by this point.  You guys, I don’t know what came over me.  The day before this hill hadn’t been an issue…and maybe it’s because I hadn’t really warmed up on a smaller hill.  This hill for some reason intimidated me.  Somehow I regained confidence, repositioned my body and got back up….I seriously almost started to cry.  LOL!  I started down the hill and took it niiiiiiice and easy.  

By the time I reached the bottom the kids were, dare I say, mad at me…annoyed even, perhaps.  I’m a slow skier as it is, but this really slowed us down.  I knew I had to redeem myself, so I really tried to keep up with them after that moment, but I also wasn’t about to go down Leprechaun again.  Hahaha!!!

While on another hill, I almost fell on ice and I screamed, but Eliza had mistaken my terrified scream as a fun scream, so then she screamed excitedly as she whipped by me as I was about to collide with a tree….okay, not exactly, but it felt like it, dang it!!!  Bahahahaha!

We met up for lunch before Jane’s 12:30 lessons.  Jon said that Jane had been rocking it and she even received a free hot cocoa card from an employee for being “such a polite little girl” to the other skiers.  This Mama was so proud!!!  

Jon went off with the big kids and I stayed behind with Jane for her lesson.  In hindsight, I probably could’ve just left and skied with Jon and the kids, but I stayed just in case.  

Jane’s instructor, Elise, was spectacular!!!  Jane asked me if her instructor was a boy or girl.  She was thrilled to find out it was a girl.  Hahaha!

I sat and watched everyone taking lessons.  I’m telling you, everyone and I mean EVERYONE I saw, watched, interacted with was absolutely amazing and kind…people were falling, getting frustrated, having happy moments…everyone was in this skiing thing together, you know, and it was really wonderful to watch.  I loved watching all the little kids at their lessons.  There were so many cute little kids all bundled up…it was the cutest thing ever!

Elise said that Jane had a great attention span and that only 1 in 100 kids her age can wedge like she was doing, so that made me feel awesome for her!!!!!!!  You best believe I tipped her after that!  LOL!

Jane went down another 462 times and I became friends with all the parents watching their kids doing the same.  At this point, my legs were just done.

Jane had finally reached her skiing threshold, too…

Jon thought that I had been back to the room, but we had stayed out on the Magic Carpet for the entire time he was off skiing with Henry and Eliza.  

Jon and the big kids had an amazing time and the weather was perfection!  In total they went down over 35 times over two days!

We followed the same kind of routine from the night before.

We got lattes, had free hot cocoa and cookies, grabbed a quick family photo, went to dinner…

…dinner………

These kids were tired.

This one was tired…and well, just being goofy…

We went swimming…

Then Jon took Henry and Eliza out skiing one more time, while I took Jane to another movie night with snacks and then headed to play games and do some crafting!  There were a lot more kids around on Saturday night!

Jon found us in the craft room and the kids joined in on the fun!

Henry was cracking up over his “turkey water bottle craft.”

We had a great time and I was definitely sad to leave…even though skiing isn’t exactly my thing.  I told Jon that I could’ve enjoyed one more day without lessons and just an easy flow kind of day.  I think it also helped that Jane could finally do things on her own and that she was actually enjoying it!

Phew.  It was a memorable trip.

…and nobody broke a bone…

*knocking on wood for next year’s trip*

Thanks so much for stopping by and scrolling through!

Marie 🙂

I’m linking up with Hello Monday