We survived ski season!

I must shout it from the top of some place very high: “I survived ski season!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

I don’t usually blog about my husband’s absences till after he’s home (that’s wise, dontcha think?) but now that ski season is officially over for us, I can tell you what the last 8 weekends have been like for our family (with pictures of one of them!)

My husband is ski school supervisor for an adaptive ski program at a ski mountain 1 1/2 hours from hour home. This means he helps children and adults enjoy the fun and freedom of the slopes, no matter what their disability. Isn’t that cool? I think he rocks. This also means he leaves at 6am Saturdays and Sundays for the duration of the program, and doesn’t get home till 6 or sometimes 8 that night.

In past years, we have made the effort to join him almost every weekend. This year, because the kids are no longer tiny babies who spend half the day napping in a porta crib in the corner of the ski lodge, and because we were still recovering from our mold problem, we only joined him once. The rest of the time, we cuddled up at home with movies and dad-less dinners (You have those, too, right?) breaking up the monotony by hauling ourselves to church with a challenging ratio of three toddlers to one parent. In the bitter cold.

Fridays lose all their charm as heralds of the weekend during this season, just sayin’.

And yet. And yet. I fully support and embrace what my husband does because:

A) I believe in sharing. Jeremy gives an inestimable gift to the people he give his time to each weekend. Why should I jealously hog his awesomeness to myself?

And,  B) I believe in supporting other’s passions. Jeremy has worked with this program for 14 years–twice as long as we’ve been married. I knew when I married him that our winters would look like this, and I was ok with that and continue to be ok with that because I’m addicted to the light in his eyes when he is embracing his passion. In fact, I began falling in love with him during ski season. (Was it that light in his eyes, or the fact that he would show up to Sunday evening church services still wearing his sexy ski gear? Hmmm. That is a question we will have to explore when I finally get around to writing the rest of our love story. ;))

But yesterday was the last day. The last day that I would watch the clock, serve dinner to the kids on paper plates, glance at the clock again, put on a movie or some wild dancing music for the kids to buy a little more sanity for myself, check my phone to calculate how long it’s been since his “on my way home” text, and finally see lights skim by the dining room windows and yell to myself, to the kids and to the world,

“Daddy’s HOME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

Sunday last week we go to join Daddy for a day on the slopes. This is what the lake looks like at 6:30 on a Sunday morning in February. Brrrr.

It’s not terribly fun to get up at 5:30am (after only 5 hours sleep, mind you) so you have time to make a nourishing breakfast (chocolate chip peanut butter oatmeal muffins, with soaking directions) and pack a family of 5 to leave by 6:30. Seeing the sunrise in this particular little lake-side town made it all worth it, because this is the town in which my man asked me to marry him 7 1/2 years go. 😉

And this? This moment, watching Seth watch his sister ski? Totally worth it.

Watching Claire ski down the BIG HILL for the first time? Totally worth it! (her and daddy are second from the bottom in the middle of the slope)

And then this. Finally Seth gets his first ski lesson. His brother and sister were 18 months and 15 months respectively when they started skiing. Seth is 2 1/2 — it was high time! He asked all day, “I go ‘kiing now?”. At last it was time.

Stepping into his skis

“So this is what it feels like!…Now what?”

We go up the hill so we can go down.

And this is an even faster way to get up the hill! Already this is a blast for my little monkey.

Then at last we are doing it…we are skiing!

Jeremy is such a great teacher…I just fall in love with him all over again every time I watch him ski backward while teaching our kids how to ski.

After 3 runs down the bunny hill, we only got Seth inside by bribing him with lunch. He just kept repeating “I ready go ‘kiing now!” After lunch a friend took him for 3 more runs. He was the shortest munchkin in the lift line. 😉

Farewell, ski season. We survived you. We even made some good memories with you. Until next year!