"I'm Going to Rock This Place Out!"

Those were the words uttered this morning by Chloe as we headed out for our 1st day of skiing here, and her 1st time EVER on skis. (Nope... she is not lacking in confidence.)

We spent the day at Eldora, a ski area 40 minutes/25 miles away. We arrived in plenty of time, which allowed us to get a "lay of the land" and let Chloe take what ever nature breaks she needed before suiting up and spending the day in ski school. (Peg and I dropped her off at 9:30a, and under instruction of the ski school staff, we were asked to not interact with her again until 3:00p.) The instructors take the kids out for a little, come back in for snack, go back out for a little more, come back in for lunch, go back out for little, come back in for snack, and go back out again to finish off the lesson.

While Chloe learned how strange it is to stand on a slope and have slippery planks attached to the bottom of her feet, Peggy and I checked out the rest of the mountain. And that took all of about 1 hour. It's not a criticism of the ski area: the warm weather I wrote about over the last couple of weeks, while great for biking, didn't help the ski areas out. So, Eldora has only 4 trails open -- 2 beginner, and 2 intermediate. Perhaps it was a good omen of days and weeks to come, but the afternoon we spent skiing in a steady snow flurry.

At 3:00, Peggy and I met up with Chloe and her instructors to see how the 1st day went. In one word: Awesome. She was a little nervous at first, but he said as the day went along, she really improved and picked up the early basics quite well. She did so well that she progressed through the 1st three stages (of 5) they have for beginner skiers!

We celebrated in the lodge by planning her next lesson, and taking in some candy and soda. I thought the sugar from that, combined with a successful first day on the slopes, would have carried Chloe home. But 20 minutes into the trip back home, we looked back and saw Chloe slumped over in her car seat, asleep.

Mom and Dad are very proud of their Chloe for rocking that place out!

(Pictures, top to bottom: one bundled up snow bunny; Chloe and I celebrating a successful day at Eldora; the newest skiing family.)