Our First Ski Weekend - Sophia Surprised Us Again!

We had our first ski trip of the season this weekend up at Mount Cranmore in North Conway, New Hampshire. The weather was warm and there weren't many trails open. In fact it was like skiing on a Slurpee but it didn't matter because it was fantastic!

I didn't learn how to ski until I was 17 but have managed to do well and get better every time I ski and after 20 years finally got new skis and boots this year and what a difference they made. It was the best day of skiing that I've ever had. Some things do get better as I get older and this is definately one of them. But this wasn't what made the day amazing. It was what happened toward the end of the day that made it a day I'll never forget.

Over the past three years, we've gone skiing once a year and we've had Sophia go to ski school for a day each time. We wanted her to learn the right way with the hopes that she would enjoy it and it would be something she could do for the rest of her life. We signed her up for ski school as usual and watched her for a while just before lunch at the instructional hill figuring that we would pick her up at 3 pm and call it a day.

So, at around 2:30 I was going down a trail and came up on a ski instructor with four kids he was guiding. As I got closer, I noticed that one of the kids looked a bit like Sophia. I got closer and the one that looked like Sophia said "Hi Dad!" I was in shock and wound up wiping out. A classic Dad move. I got myself up, walkie-talkied Sandy who was at the base of the mountain that I just skied next to Sophia and she couldn't believe it either. I caught up to Sophia and her group again and told her I'd meet her at the bottom. She got down with her group and we went over to her to tell her how proud we were of her. She was grinning from ear to ear. She said she was proud of herself too! The instructor said that she was ready to go down the hill so they decided to let her try and that she could ski with me for the rest of the day so she and I headed for the chair lift for our first ever father-daughter ski run. Here's a picture of us at the end of our first run together (Sophia is in the blue outfit and I'm the one that looks like a fat creamsicle catching up to her!)


She's fast. Way to fast and I had to keep up with her! I was actually scared at how fast and how well she did. We had time and we did it again. She took one heck of a spill and I thought that she hurt herself. As I got to her, she stood up and said "That was great! Let's keep going!"

Sophia and I have different nicknames for each other for different activities and I told her that her skiing nickname shoud be "Speed Demon". And, in return, she told me I should be "The Fat Creamsicle" because my ski clothes are orange and white. Maybe she's growing up too fast.

Here's a few more photos of the daredevil daughter and one proud father!


It was truly an amazing day and we went to dinner that night at the Peking which is a Chinese restaurant in North Conway that has some of the best Chinese food we've ever had. Here's a picture of the daredevil with her victory Shirley Temple.

We came home tonight so refreshed that it feels like we went on a week's vacation.

So, now that Sophia really can ski, our plans are to go skiing every free weekend we have for the remainder of this winter and Sandy is going to ski with us too! Sophia will still go to ski school on Saturdays so that she can learn all the right things, then ski with us for a while. Then we'll enjoy Cranapalooza (free concerts, smores by the outdoor fires with hot chocolate), hit the tubing hill and enjoy the fireworks. Not a bad way to spend weekends this winter.

I had always hoped that we would be able to do this as a family and I am still in awe of the fact that this is actually happening. It's better than I ever imagined it would be and Sandy and I are amazed by Sophia yet again.

It's been a while since the last posting and since then we celebrated the holidays and added to our zoo!

Since the last posting to the blog, we've celebrated Christmas and the New Year and we had a wonderful holiday season. We did a lot of ice skating (pictures below) and with the unseasonably warm weather, we even managed to go mountain biking!


It was such a wonderful holiday that we felt like we were on vacation for a month.

Plus, there's a new addition to our zoo - a miniature daschsund we have named Andouille (pronounced on-dew-wee - like the sausage)!


On the first day of the winter vacation, Sandy and Sophia were out for a mother-daughter day and came across this little guy in a pet shop. They had me come back that night to meet him and I knew that he would be coming home with us regardless of what I thought. You could just tell that Sandy and Sophia had already decided but I told them we needed to think about it more.

The next day, while Sophia was at the home of one of her friends, Sandy and I brought our beagle, Emma, to the pet shop to meet this puppy. An hour later, he was on his way to our home. I reserved naming rights on this puppy and he reminded me of a sausage and since I love to make Cajun/Creole food, the name Andouille was a perfect fit. We call him Douille (pronounced "Doo-wee") a lot.

About 18 hours after he came home, Sandy noticed he wasn't eating or drinking and was pretty lethargic. She brought him to the veterinarian and he wound up in intensive care for three days with an IV in one of his paws. It was horrible and he recovered pretty quickly. The veterinarian wasn't sure what was wrong with him but we were allowed to bring him home two days before Christmas and we got a great Christmas gift in that the place we got him from paid the $1,500+ in veterinarian bills for his three days in intensive care.

Andouille and Emma get along well and Emma treats Andouille like he is her puppy. He's tiny. he weighs about 4 pounds and is now 11 weeks old and he sure has a big heart. He's still getting used to running and it's pretty cute to watch his front end go one way and his back end slide the other way, especially on the wood floors. During the day the two of them spend a lot of time playing with (chewing on) each other and sleeping.

So the zoo got a little bigger this holiday season and our home got a little crazier. We wouldn't have it any other way!