Skiing

It started inside, with the girls trying out their skis and boots (thanks to Uncle Mike & Aunt Megan)

Yes, even ballet-princess can ski!

Then, after one of our mid-winter snows, we took the skis to the local sledding hill

There was a most obliging lift

A little break for sledding

Perhaps the best part was eating the snow:

Then on to the real mountain: Dave took each girl up for a day at Eldora and they had enough fun that we decided to enroll them in a lesson sequence for small children on Friday mornings, cleverly named 'Eldorables'. Since my dad was nice enough to babysit Vivian, this meant that I got to ski for 2 hours (which I desperately needed after gathering up their gear, driving up there, getting each girl dressed in snowpants, ski boots, fleece jacket, winter jacket, mittens, helmet, goggles... just to protect them from the wind and cold while we walked from the car to the lodge, where we had to take off the goggles, helmet, mittens, winter jacket and fleece jacket to go potty, then had to dress them again in the fleece jacket, winter jacket, mittens, helmet, goggles... Oh wait, we forgot the sunscreen! What do you mean you have to go potty again? No, there's no snacks! You can't have any water, just eat some snow when you get out there! Just go, come on, hurry up, yes, it's hard to walk down stairs in your ski boots, here, where's your instructor? No, I'm not staying with you, you're a big girl and you'll do just fine. Oh here he is, good, finally, please take them I so need to get a few runs in! Before coming back and doing it all again, in reverse.)

Isn't this fun? (These photos courtesy of my mom, who accompanied us one day. So actually everyone is in a better mood than usual.)

The scariest part for us? They're riding the chair lift! Our kids who spontaneously fall over while standing, is that a good idea? This picture is a bit hard to decipher but I wanted to show you that, as my mom pointed out, their legs are so short that the skis stick straight up and down.

We're all heading up to Eldora tomorrow (except Vivian, again courtesy of the grandparents), for which I'm unexpectedly excited. I'm sure we won't get off of the 'lower mountain' but hey-- we'll finally be skiing with our kids!