It was storming, and we were watching the weather forecast to make a last minute decision on whether to go or not. The entire week was snowing except for 2 days in the middle, so the day before, we decided to head to Lake Tahoe to catch those 2 good days. We dropped by Helm of Sun Valley thinking to pick up ski rentals for the kids, but turns out that if we go skiing at least 3 times, it'd end up cheaper to buy used skis and boots for the kids, so that's what we ended up doing. We started packing after dinner, had to stop after an hour to put the boys to sleep, then stayed up until 3am and still hadn't finished packing. Woke up the next day to finish packing and loading everything into the van, and finally left our house close to 11am. Unfortunately, probably due to lack of sleep and some kind of stomach flu/virus floating around, both middle J and I were feeling ill and weak the entire day with no appetite to eat. My hubby was thinking we might just end up staying in the lodging the entire next day, haha. The drive up was good - no snow and no chains needed. The condo was nice, except the thermostat was broken. The heat couldn't be turned down or off, so the condo was a roasting 81 degrees. A maintenance guy was supposed to come fix it but never showed up. So, a good part of the night was spent alternating between opening and closing the windows to let in cold air. Little J kept waking up the entire night due to being so hot.

Luckily, the next day both middle J and I woke up feeling much less ill, so we headed off to the ski resort. "The plan" was to enroll the older J's in group lessons for the morning, and my hubby and I would take turns skiing and watching little J.  Sound familiar? Hahaha. Unfortunately, we got there a bit late, around 9:30am, and parking was quite far from the resort. So, we figured my hubby would drop me off with the older boys to register for the lessons first, and he would go park and bring little J and the rest of the stuff. We grabbed our skis, helmets, goggles, etc., and went inside to the ski school. Next thing I knew, my husband was dropping off little J with his skis as well because he started crying and having a fit at being left behind. I had to wait in 2 different lines due to my boys being in different age groups, and was told that all group lessons were sold out for the day, but that I could try private lessons. Of course, that was a different line, and I enrolled middle J in a one-hour private lesson. Older J was in a different age group, so had to wait in yet another line. The last private lesson was sold right before it was my turn, so no lesson for oldest J. The entire time, all 3 boys were grumbling and complaining about it being boring and wanting to go outside and ski and play in the snow, and why was it taking so long, and they didn't want to take lessons, and why can't they just go out..... After I was done registering I figured I would just take them to go play in the snow while waiting for my hubby to get back, but that was when I realized my husband had forgotten to put little J's jacket on, and forgotten to change his snow boots to ski boots. It was too cold to take little J outside without his jacket. So I called my husband to ask him to fetch the jacket and ski boots, and we waited and waited... My husband finally got back, except..... drum roll... he forgot little J's jacket. So, I suggested he take little J with him on the tram back to the van to grab the jacket while I took the older boys to the snow. 

The boys were happy to finally get on the snow, but I spent a considerable amount of energy and effort getting them into their skis. Both of them could not get their heels to snap into the skis, so I had to do it for them. I showed them the ski basics, and let them practice on a relatively flat area. They both kept falling and couldn't get back up, so I ended up going back and forth picking them up one after the other. I was tired after my hubby finally got back, haha. We put little J in his skis too, but after a few minutes of sliding around, he didn't want to ski anymore.  Middle J ended up falling and hurting his legs when his skis knocked his legs, and he was wailing and crying at the top of his lungs and wanting to go home. We decided at that point to take a lunch break. Luckily, after eating the boys were good to go again. I dropped off middle J to his private lesson, and then suggested to my hubby that I could watch little J during the lesson while my hubby take oldest J skiing. It then dawned on us that we didn't have our ski poles. My hubby had left them at the condo, haha. Luckily, the poles weren't crucial, so off they went. Little J was mostly happy playing with the snow, until he saw the ski school had sleds and wanted to play with them. We had packed a sled too, except my hubby left that in the van, haha. After the lesson ended, middle J wanted to go ski, so I called my hubby to see where they were. My hubby had evidently taken oldest J on the Lakeview lift all the way to the top, and they were still making their way down. Amazingly, oldest J was doing great, only falling a few times and basically able to handle going down. After they got down, I took middle J skiing on Lodgepole, and he did quite well, too. After a few runs, the boys were tired, so we went back to the lodge. It turned out to be a beautiful day for skiing - sunny, not too cold, and no wind. Both of them liked skiing and were excited to go again the next day.

Forecast was light snow the next morning and rain after lunch, so we planned to pack up most of the luggage that night so that we could head out early the next day to ski in the morning and then head home. Unfortunately (you had to know that was coming, right?), middle J was goofing around with the other boys, tripped, and ended up burning his fingers on the gas fireplace. He got burn blisters on 4 of his fingers, and was screaming at the top of his lungs. Ran cold water over the fingers for 15 minutes, gave him ibuprofen for pain relief, and he still insisted on the cold water, so got him a cup of cold water for him to soak his fingers in. I ended up spending the entire evening/night changing the water every 5 minutes for him. We got nothing packed, and he fell asleep with his hand in the cup. He knocked the cup over twice during the night, which started another round of crying each time. 

The next morning we woke up to light snowing outside, and middle J said that maybe he could still ski. So, I asked him to see if he can put his glove on, but he said it hurt too much, and that he couldn't ski. It was for the better, since it took an hour for us to pack up everything, and by the time we finished, the snow had turned to heavy rain, so we just headed home.