Gavin, Ski Pro

Last week I took Gavin skiing in Boone - his first ever time skiing.

I bought him an hour private ski lesson to start out with (imagine my surprise when we got there and his lift ticket and equipment rental was free!). Once I saw that he was comfortable with his instructor and that she was good with him, I took off and skied some, and came back occasionally to peek on him. After 45 minutes was up, he was still struggling to assume the snowplow position, so I bought a second hour.

Best decision ever! By the end of the second hour he was down the bunny hill without falling. So she took him on the green hill and I tagged along behind to see how she helped him on and off the lift. She skied backwards while he snowplowed down the hill - with a few falls. Our time was up, so Gavin and I were on our own! We went down a couple times and then broke for lunch. At that point I had perfected my backwards skiing technique and Gavin was perfecting his snowplow, so after lunch I skied in front a bit and snapped some pics. Then I skied behind him - no falls!

He begged and begged to go down the next steepest hill. So off we went. He was doing great until he got a little out of control and fell and went up in a poof of snow. Which he thought was "so awesome!" After making it down that one without falling, we headed for the harder hills yet - the first run down he was so fast that I had to go full speed to catch up with him! And he didn't fall!

We had such a great time. The private lesson was the best $50 spent as there was no way we would have been patient enough with each other to teach him that. It was so great to do something that I really love with him, and to see how much fun he had doing it. By the time we left he had been going strong for 5 1/2 hours!