Mary Jane/WP State of Mind

For the past 5 years I have been getting 1 to 3 of my children in the car with games and toys and snacks to keep them happy on the drive to the ski resorts. The past few years Anne has come with me and so it was a family ski day almost every Saturday. I am proud to say that I never paid a dollar towards ski instruction and took that task on by myself (brothers included).
I started with Jackson and we were excited to come home and tell Anne of the gains that he had on the day. For nearly 3 years it was just the boys while Anne and Lexi would stay home and miss out on the fun.

Claire-Sam-Anne-Josh-Thomas-Jackson

Anne came up "just to try" and found out she was pretty good and could ski the beginner hills. I was told by ski patrol the following season I could not carry Lexi and she needed to ski on her own. This actually happened at the top of a lift in the afternoon while Lexi has fallen asleep on my shoulder.
The next season we started our 3rd and final skier and she picked it up just as fast as her brothers. Jackson and myself transitioned to snowboarding and started again on the beginner hills after learning from some YouTube videos moved up the the blues and just last week took on our first black on snowboards. I told Jackson he could switch years ago once he could ski any run on the resort. I promise I took him down some pretty radical runs to make sure he was able to ski anything and he killed every run.

Rockstar 1-Rockstar 2

Anne-Lexi-Claire-Jackson-Sam-Thomas-Josh

This year is almost half over. We have finally found equipment that is the right size for Anne and now she is rocking the hills. Lexi is all on her own and so the family last week skied together in the morning and had a blast.


Jackson-Thomas-Max-Sam

The new chapter for me came in the afternoon when the older kids wanted to go ski and board the harder hills. For so many years I stayed behind and sent Jackson or Josh with them while I was with the younger kids. Not this week, I was able to go with the older kids and we went to the rail park and had a blast all afternoon. This was such a joy for me and to know that I now have the rest of my life to ski with my family is AWESOME. It is hard to put into words how I feel about family ski day and how hard the past has been and how sweet the future looks. I figure that I will work hard over the next few years to put it into words every time I have an epic day but be warned I expect many of them in my future.
Go team Walton!!!!

Love you Anne,

T