A very busy weekend....

Skier Days: Sara(17), Caroline(6), Susan(3), Charles(9)

It is Sunday night and it is snowing again...  Susan, Caroline and Maggie are back in the car, heading to Medford.   Sara and I are quietly catching our breath and getting ready for another busy week.

Friday...


On Friday afternoon we replaced our stove.   It was the original stove that came with the condo and the plug in coil burners were temperamental and did not always work well.  We had a credit from our last purchase of a a dryer at Sears and so cashed that in for a sleek new black, flat top stove.   The delivery guys worked the miracle of getting the old unit down and the new one all the way up to the third floor.  I cleaned out nearly 20 years of gunk from underneath the stove.    Susan and Caroline had left early from school today so as not to have to drive up in the dark in the mini.  They arrived late afternoon and Susan had made a really yummy lasagna for the dinner this evening.

Sara was late getting home this evening as she was taking her second set of dance lessons in preparation for the big Snow Ball that was held on Saturday night.   After we all ate and got to spend some time together Susan rode down to Bethel to get Sara and spend some quality time in the car on the way back.

Saturday...


Sara had classes today and a bit more skiing.  They have been working hard on slalom gates and she is really proud of the improvements she has made in being more aggressive in hitting the gates.   After classes Saturday morning, she had skiing, in the afternoon, and then the formal dance.  I dropped her early down at campus for 7:45 and barely made it back to see Caroline out the door to get to the start of her program at 8:30.

It was super cold and windy today and sadly Susan's boot warmers had died.  She managed to make due with some air activated toe warmers and we met up with the whole gang from Black Diamond Program.  BDP is a program by which folks of varying abilities ski with a group of instructors.  It run for the entire season and meets for a couple hours on Saturday morning, Saturday afternoon, and Sunday morning each week.   The members and the instructors break up into various groups based on ability and style of skiing.  It is a great deal for the money and it also means that on the very busy weekends you get to skip the long lines. And on top of it all of that there is a great social component to the group.

Sara went to her Ball and had a wonderful time.  She danced the night away and I drove down to Bethel to get her at 10:30 pm.  In the meantime Susan, Caroline and I went to dinner with Rod, Jenny, Nat, and Drew.  Nat and Caroline became fast friends last year as J5s and we have gotten to be know the whole family really well.  We had dinner at the Phoenix and it was pretty decent food.  The menu has changed a bunch since last year, but everyone's dinner game out pretty tasty.  The kids really enjoy it because they have a great video game section and pool tables in a room off of the dining room.     I spent an hour or so before and an hour or so after tuning up skis down in the locker.  It is pretty crazy all of the activity layering that goes on.   It is pretty amazing that it all manages to get done.

Sunday...

The excitement for today involved Sara's first chance to fore run a real course for the J1s and J2s.  Caroline did her regular program as did Susan and I with BDP.   Sara was down at the competition center early and did some training and helping throughout the day.   She had two chances to run the course before each of the main races.  She is still coming up to speed on the slalom, which is really technical, but we were really impressed on the progress that she has made so far this season.

She is really starting to get the hang of taking a close line and finishing her turns as she gets to the gates.  Pretty soon she will be making that awesome thwack, thwack, thwack sound.   Skiing behind her on Saturday as she carried down coats for the older kids I was amazed at how quickly she and her teammates move from edge to edge and how elegant they are becoming even on the crowded uneven terrain from below where the course completed down to the lift.

I ended the day watching the Patriots in the Barker Bar and Susan kindly came over and picked up the lot of us as she had headed back to the condo as soon as Sara had finished her run. We made it back to the condo, and got everything in order and the girls headed back on the long ride back to Medford.

All and all it was a very busy weekend and now I am tired and ready to go to bed and prepare for another busy week ahead of meetings and hopefully a couple of ski breaks.  The finally got Escapade open and it is now possible to ski directly out the back door of the building.   On top of that we got another 4-5 inches of snow this evening and it looks like there is more in the forecast and more cold weather as well.