Skiing Fun!

I took the kids skiing in the Sierra Mountains on Friday.

They each brought a friend from school, and Rocco's buddy's mom joined us as well. Her name is Kelly and we get along great, have similar interests and have gone running a few times together.

We put the kids in an all day private lesson. But, we ended up joining them around 2pm and kept skiing the green's with them. It was a really great day and we all had a blast. Gabby and Rocco are getting to be great little skiers.

Rocco has no fear, great balance, and just races down the mountain. The coach kept telling me he's a natural and that she just had to remind him to not bullet down the hill... but work on some S turns. I tried to tell him to not go so fast...and he said "MOM... I LIKE going fast!" I really loved skiing with him and he could have kept skiing into the night.

Gabby really enjoys skiing. But, sometimes her perfectionism gets the best of her. Her coach and I both reminded her a few times that she's not going to be perfect and she has to let herself make some mistakes. A full day of coached skiing for her might have been a bit much... but it seemed like she relaxed and had a lot more fun, and did better, when we were all hanging out together skiing the greens. I also think she may have been a little competitive with her friend.

The only bummer about the ski day was that there were dismal amounts of snow in the mountains. Check out some of these photos... I can't recall ever seeing so much of the rock and terrain of the ground while skiing in the Sierra's. Mountain tops that would normally be blanketed in snow didn't have any... and some had patches. The resort we were skiing at had more runs closed than open. And, the snow by the end of the day was awful... ice patches, slush... it was crazy. I felt like we were skiing in April vs. January. No snow. Fifty-five degrees at 1pm. Crazy stuff.

California could REALLY use some storms. Our area is in a drought and in desperate need of rain. And, the mountains are lacking so much snow... it could really impact our water supplies come springtime if we don't get rain soon.