Ski Day!

 The huge storm we had early in the month fit with our ski plans perfectly! We had a free Friday thanks to parent teacher conferences and scheduled a few months in advance to meet my parents for a ski day at Alta. This year we brought Livs along too and promptly dropped the 3 oldest off at ski school and fit in some glorious runs (Luke stayed with aunt Mary and played with cousin Leo :)

Livs was a champ at first and even skied down the little hill to the ski school! Not an easy feat when you are a total beginner.

Once she was all signed int and ready to go she had to wear her orange ski school vest and for some reason she was not okay with that and lost it for a minute :( I tried to help her feel excited again, wiped away some tears, and left her with her instructor. I knew she'd be great if she could get over the orange vest!

Beans and Cares were much easier to drop off at class!

Ski school is the best :) It provides a lovely 2.5 hour window for a double date on the mountain.

We couldn't have asked for a better day on the slopes. The snow was light and fresh and it was such a glorious day! Skiing is fun because once you've done it enough times it just comes right back and feels so smooth and fun. 

 Beautiful Alta. I love you all year long!

Such a sunny bluebird day that I couldn't even keep my eyes open for this picture!

Ski school ended up being a great adventure and all the kids got an ice cream cone once they were done. Since we had 4 adults we decided to be super brave and take the kids up the lift and try out a real deal run. I rode up with Caroline, Joseph took Olivia and my parents took Bentley. Getting on and off the lift with a beginner was a little tricky but we managed!

 We all made it to the top! Going down that first run was such a workout. I mostly helped Olivia and skied with her right between my legs or skied backwards and had her follow in my tracks. My thighs and back were wasted haha! Caroline was still really unstable but Joseph thought she was more ready than she was and that meant for a lot of crashes and falling over for her early on. She needed a lot more help and once we knew that it was much better going. Bean was such a speedy rock star —skiing totally clicked for him this year and he was ready for another run without any help at all so we sent him up with my mom and dad for one more and he did so well.

 Livs and I skied back to the car with Cares and Joseph and got all packed up and organized while Bean had that last run. It was perfect to have my parents there to take him up and teach him a few new things while we handled the other kids. Skiing is a 4 parent sport!!

We all came down the canyon, grabbed Luke from the Brauns, and met over at my parents' house for delivery pizza and hot-tubbing. It was a tiring, gorgeous, perfect day! I'd so love to be a skiing family but it's such an expensive activity. For right now we'll just have to take a day or two when we can, but I have high hopes of popping up to Beaver Mountain for a ski vacation really soon and getting these kiddos more comfortable on the snow at the cutest ski resort in Utah :)