Ski Maniac

Tim got a GoPro camera for Christmas and here is a video he and James took when they went skiing in February. When James is skiing, it is mounted to his helmet. I chose the song, because when I uploaded the videos, anytime James is skiing with the camera on, I could hear him humming the Super Mario theme song to himself. Hilarious. This video is after only one of his Eldorable lessons this year. He has had 4 more since then and has improved A LOT!

James really enjoyed skiing the past couple of seasons,  but this year he 150% LOVES it. He asks to go all the time and completely loves every second of it. We signed him up for the Eldorables program again this year with his friend Will. I picked him up from school early on Mondays so that he could head up to ski in the afternoon. Since most kids who do the program are beginners, James and Will were with their own instructor and had an absolute blast for the 5 week session. Their instructor said he had such a blast skiing with them each week and they made so much progress. By the end of their session, they had mastered all "blue" runs and can now ski parallel, make parallel turns, ski with poles and do easier jumps and moguls. James literally looked forward to Eldorables from Tuesday-Sunday each week and would be SO excited when it was Monday and time to ski. Here is Will and James with their instructor, John.

On the last session of Eldorables and on the last run, James twisted his knee doing moguls and had to be brought down the mountain on a stretcher by ski patrol. I was watching out the window of the lodge and saw Will and John ski down and no James and when I saw ski patrol pulling a stretcher with James' helmet peeking out, I about had a heart attack! Luckily, nothing was broken and after about a day of resting it and ice, he could walk again. We had xrays done and besides some internal swelling, which displaced his knee cap, he is just fine. He is still a little stiff a week later, but we are hoping he will be fine to ski this weekend.

 We had a ski weekend with Will's family and for the first time Mac really enjoyed skiing.

 Mac has skied a couple times since then and on our last trip up, we borrowed a harness so Tim could ski with Mac on some longer runs. Mac absolutely had a blast and kept saying he was a "serious skier." We had to bribe the boys with hot chocolate to stop skiing that day. They were both having so much fun!

Mac's first time on the lift.

I am so glad that we have found an activity (besides Legos) that brings James so much joy. It is also awesome that it is something that he and Tim, and someday all of us, can do together. For now, I have fun wrangling Mac on the bunny hill while James and Tim do longer runs and watching them for the few runs they all do together. I think James will be pretty bummed when ski season is over. Luckily, we have a few more trips up to the cabin planned this spring!