Mark had
a Salford meeting at the shop. He spent the past week preparing everything down
to the last detail. His shop looked so clean it sparkled. It
looked amazing and his three Salford implements were so shiny red even the tires
shined. He takes a lot of pride in his farm and equipment. His semis get a bath
everytime they go out. My Tahoe is lucky to get cleaned once a month. The
weather was kind of sketchy with the morning starting out in a winter weather
watch of snow, wind, and ice. Fortunately by late morning the sun was shinning
and Mark had a good turnout. Lunch was at noon with the meeting at 1:30. The
kids and I did school in the morning , then headed to the shop at 11. In the late afternoon, the local Seven Oaks Ski hill was having a homeschool day for
families to ski at a huge discounted price. We have talked about going skiing
there for the past 5 years and every winter say we will. Mark didn’t think he
would be able to ski with his thigh troubles so I thought I would take them.
Today seemed the perfect day, we had freshly fallen fluffy snow and the temps
were around 35. You can’t get much better than that. This whole winter has been
bitterly cold so much that skiing was not even a consideration. Everything just
came together for the perfect ski day. Taking on the ski hill with three
children all by myself was going to be a huge patience challenge for me. I also didn't know how it would be possible to help all three at one time, but I was going to give it a try. It had been 7 years since Jayden skiied
and I did not know how she would do but hoped it would all come back. Once we were all in skiis,
I pushed the boys and let them get a feel of how to move around and side step.
Then it was straight in line for the rope tow. I couldn’t help both boys nor
leave one at the bottom of the hill and the top with the other, nor could
Jayden really help. She had never used a rope tow before . I grabbed a
nearby instructor and asked for help. They took Jake and Luke to the top,
helped them up with the rope tow. Luke basically grabbed the rope and took off
like a natural. At the top the instructor helped each of the boys down the hill
once. They held the front of theirs skis together and went down backwards
guiding them. After that it was up to me. Both boys could do the rope tow on
their own. I stayed with Luke and Jake just started snow plowing down the hill
on his own. The more he went the better he got and the more confident he got.
After Luke’s first run down with the instructor, he was ready to quit and be
done. I told him he had to go at least 3 more times.
The more he went he began to love it. The rope tow was a challenge for all of
us. Someone would fall and then we would have to stop to avoid running them over. There were lots of times Luke would fall at the tow too. That was so hard
getting back on the tow. It was hard on me especially my back. At the top, I
skiied backwards helping Luke for the rest of the day. We probably made a dozen
trips down. Jayden could ski on her own well. I told her to try to ski zig zag
across the hill. In trying that, one time she face planted so hard she had a
bloody nose and had to go to first aid. I did not know what happened but saw
her leaving the hill and I knew something was wrong. Her nose was all swollen
and forehead scratched. She was tough about it.
It was 3:00 when we got on the slope and we were the last ones down when
they closed at 6. The kids loved it and didn’t want to quit. All the way home
they talked about how bad they want to do it again.
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