JN Family Skiing FunWe love being outdoors, and while biking is probably our favorite activity, it's not so fun to be biking in the rain and wind during winter with young kids.  So, instead we hit the slopes and play in the snow :) Skiing With KidsWe've just started getting back into skiing after having 3 kids, haha, and it's a whole different ballgame with kids attached.  It's a ton of work, especially in the beginning when they're first learning to ski.  I suppose we could have just left the kids at home and gone skiing ourselves, but we just couldn't bring ourselves to do so, haha.  After all, we wanted to include them in the fun.  Other couples we know enroll their kids in all-day ski lessons and then go skiing themselves, but all of our boys didn't want to take lessons and wanted to ski with us instead.  We've enjoyed being able to ski down the trails together with them, and it won't be long before they won't want to hang with Mama and Daddy, so we figure might as well enjoy the time with them while we can. When Oldest J was 2 years old, we decided to bring him with us to the snow. Since it's a 4 hour drive from our home to Lake Tahoe ski area, we figured we should arrive the day before so that we'd be well-rested to ski the next day. Our plan was to buy an interchangeable parent's lift ticket so that my hubby and I could take turns to ski and to watch and play with our son in the snow. Well, our son ended up waking up crying on and off throughout the night due to being in a strange environment, so both my hubby and I were walking zombies by morning. After attempting a few ski runs on little to no sleep and barely managing to maintain any balance, we pretty much gave up skiing. And, little did we predict how completely scared of the snow our son would be. He refused to step onto the snow, at all, clinging to us and clamping his legs around us like a crab to avoid touching the snow. We basically stayed inside the ski lodge the entire time, going up and down the stairs with him over and over again for fun, haha. We did not attempt another trip to the snow until after Middle J was 2 years old, and Oldest J was 4 years old. Luckily, Middle J had no fear of snow, and Oldest J had gotten over his fear. We were thinking, we can just enroll Oldest J in a ski lesson, and then take turns watching Middle J and going skiing. You'd think we'd learn by now that things never go according to plan with kids, right? We enrolled Oldest J in a 2-hour morning lesson. Halfway through the lesson, he was crying and wanting Daddy, so he basically skipped the rest of the lesson, and now we were stuck with 2 kids, haha. It was 4 years later before we had energy to make another attempt, haha. By this time, our kids were 8, 6, and 2 years old. And ya, we made plans, but we fully expected the unexpected and to just go with the flow, and it's a good thing we did. Middle J and I both got ill on the way up, thermostat in condo wasn't working and Little J woke up entire night. When we got to the ski resort, Hubby forgot Little J's ski jacket, our ski poles, and the sled, and all group lessons were sold out. The boys did have fun skiing though and were eager to go again. Middle J ended up getting burn blisters back at the condo when accidentally touching the gas fireplace. Despite all the incidents, disorganization, and inefficiency, I'd still consider the trip a success. The boys had fun skiing and are eager to go again, and well, that's pretty much the point of the whole trip, isn't it? :) JN Family Ski TripsFollowing is a journal and gallery of all our past ski trips.  Note: We prefer to keep our personal experiences and pictures to family and friends only, so you'll need to be logged into your Google account and authorized to access the page.  If you are family or friend and have a Google account, please click on the link below and sign in to request access :) Ski ResortsFollowing are ski resorts we've been to over the years, and our experiences with them. Diamond Peak Heavenly Sierra at Tahoe Donner Soda Springs Boreal Kirkwood |