Fireside

It’s been a great few days in Breckenridge. It’s snowing lightly outside; I’m sitting by a real wood-burning fireplace, a slight chill in the air but my feet cozy on the hearth. The glowing embers provide the only light in the room, and the crackle and the soft breathing of two worn-out kids on the sofa bed behind me provide the din. We’ve only been here going on three days, but sometimes that’s all you need.

Today was just about perfect. We are here for Matt to attend a meeting, but he really only got busy today. We started the day with a swim. Maggie “tinker bell” jumping and Ian “transforming” in the air before hitting the water. They shared the goggles, and they shared me. We then hung out in the room and played with the limited selection of toys we brought- reminding me that sometimes they have too many choices at home to make a good one. After lunch we shuttled downtown to the Mountain Top Children’s Museum… who knew they had such a thing in a tourist ski town? They do, and it was quite cute. It kept us busy for two hours. They have ski patrol dress-up, rescue sled, helicopter, and a pretend mountain clinic where we took turns as patient, doctor, and pilot. We played in the “Bear Cave” and fished for magnetic trout. We dressed up and built things. When we were tired and hungry we found a rather quirky little French Bakery, with bad coffee and good hot chocolate. The kids didn’t eat their cinnamon sugar crepe! So I had to. We froze our tails off waiting for the shuttle bus. Then, “home” again, we read books while watching the snow fall. No naps and dusk meant we’d better go grab dinner or else one little girl was destined for a far-too late snooze. So off we went to find dinner in this huge resort (Beaver Run, highly recommend it!). We passed up a rowdy apres-ski bar and opted for the unlikely kid-friendly restaurant that actually was. So we dined by candlelight, two kiddos and I. As was promised in return for good dinner behavior, we stopped into the arcade and played a great game of air hockey, my personal favorite. After winning some rubber balls on a snowboard game, Ian started a lively game of “thuck”… which, if said too quickly, does make you chuckle. In thuck, you throw the ball and then chase it yourself, wherever it may go. A few near losses of our newly acquired balls and it was time to turn in. We built this fire, read books til we could no more, and the kids drifted off peacefully. All this, and no fights. It really doesn’t get much better. Unless of course we’d been with Daddy all day. But that is tomorrow!

A Natural

We hit the sweet-spot; that age between too young to get past the cold and discomfort and too old to be fearless and full of pure excitement. “SkIan” hit the slopes for the first time, and he was so good. He had Mom and Dad’s undivided attention, as Maggie had Grammie’s, and he was good to go. He strapped those boots on, clipped into those skis, and down the bunny slope at Breckenridge we went. About ¾ of the way down with Dad we had a moment. Ian was down, knees twisted and skis entangled. It was HOT at the bottom of that hill in the sun with the helmet and all. Ian looked up and said very calmly but very seriously, “I can’t do this.” We looked at him and said “oh yes you can… come on, get up, we’re almost to the lift”. Having ridden on the chairlift this summer at Copper Mountain, he was really looking forward to doing it again. So that got him back up on his skis and down the rest of the hill. We passed up the “magic carpet”, passed up the T-bar, and went straight for the SuperChair. He sat between us on the lift and looked around and took it all in: He looked as though he’d done this a thousand times. We got to the top and made our exit strategy, which was to each take an arm and go straight. He didn’t falter, didn’t fall, and when we came to a stop he said “does Jace know how to ski already?”. When we responded yes, he does, that was it. Down the hill we went, and he wanted nothing to do with “pizza pie” slowing down or stopping. By the second run down, Ian was not only flying next to Daddy with his skis perfectly parallel and steady as a rock, but he wanted to go faster. Finally we decided that the kid really needed to learn how to slow down and stop, or it would be trouble shortly. So we picked a nice quiet side-slope, and he did it alone. We told him to turn his skis before he got to Daddy, waiting a few yards down slope. He did it! He fell, but every time he did he got more enthusiastic. His skis naturally formed the “snow plow” as he turned to slow down, and just like that, he was skiing. Suddenly Matt and I started to dream out loud of the family ski trips, the new equipment and season passes; the life with slightly older kids we’ve been excited for. We’re going to Jackson, Telluride, Taos, the Alps! But first, we’ll do a few more days on the bunny slopes. We’re pretty proud of our little alpine athlete.