A New Year Skiing Adventure

One of our Christmas gifts was a kit that converts our jogging stroller into a ski trailer. Tim had fun putting it together and we've been excitedly waiting for enough snow to try it out (we got it from Tim's parents, and since we celebrated Christmas in November with Tim's family, we've had the trailer ready for several weeks now). New Year's Day was a perfect day for skiing. I love it when it's not too cold, but snow is falling. It only took about 1 1/2 hours for our family to get on ski clothes and get the car loaded for our adventure.

Here are Kate and her mom, ready for our excursion (can I recommend Kid to Kid, the second-hand shopping store, for all of your shopping needs? We got several of our Christmas gifts for the kids there, as well as this snow suit and Kate's winter coat and her church shoes. . . great quality and cheap price):

Here are Ethan and Kate, tucked into their "sleigh." They had a blast for the first hour of the trip, but got relatively antsy/grumpy/annoying after that. Ethan was in a great mood all the way to the ski hill. "I yike big mountains. Mama, do you yike big mountains? I yike baby mountains. Daddy, do you yike baby mountains? Daddy, you putting on your ski boots?"  Don't they make skiing look like a laugh a minute?

After an hour of skiing (Tim pulled them in the sleigh, and it was slow going, towing 70 or more pounds on skis attached to a hip belt), Ethan wanted to get out to play. Grandpa, being the trooper that he is, even carried Ethan on his shoulders for a while. Imagine.

We need to modify our ski plans, because naturally a 3-year-old will want to play in the snow, but when it's time to get back in the sleigh for the long ride back to the trailhead, he was not a happy camper, which woke up sleeping Kate, and eventually about drove Tim over the edge. Shorter adventures? A faster sleigh? We're working on a solution, because we only have 7 weeks before our cabin outing in February, and there needs to be some serious skiing going on there!

Here we are, taking a short break.  The next picture shows Tim and the kids on the last stretch of the trail.

We went skiing with Tim's parents and our friends Darin and Tera and their son Paul.  Kate and Paul loved sitting next to each other at lunch.