"Let's shred, shred the pow pow"

Friday was the boys' last day of the 2009 season ski school. Wow...what a day! It snowed Thursday all day and night, dumping about a foot of fresh powder by Friday morn. Awesome for the skiers, not so much for the driver, who would need chains or snow tires and 4-wheel drive. After a frustrating 15 minutes of attempting to put the chains on, I discovered that the cables/chains for my tires, were not the right size. I had three kids to take up to Bogus Basin (Charlie, Cole, and Mica), one out of town husband, and no immediate alternatives to get up the hill. I loaded the ski equipment and kids in the car, then headed for Big O Tire to buy some new chains. Alas, they didn't have the right size and neither did the five other stores that they called. Thankfully Drew's truck was available, so we quickly drove to the Neinstedt's house, unloaded and transferred two carseats, three kids, and all of the ski equipment. We arrived at Bogus about 15 minutes late, which was a minor miracle given the morning (I didn't mention all the horrible details including a sock tantrum by Cole, a turn around to get gas, etc). I was even able to get all three kids geared up in a fairly cramped extra cab in less than 10 minutes...which was quite a feat. They apparently only missed one run each. We got fun report cards of the progress made.

 

Cole's teacher was very complimentary and said that Cole showed signficant improvement in his first season and went from a level 1 to a "solid level 3" (there are 9 levels). I guess kids go from level 1 to 2 or 3 pretty quickly, then getting through levels 3 to 6 is pretty slow. Charlie started out as a level 3 and moved to a level 4 this season. Charlie's teacher said that he was a "very aggressive skier." Both of the boys made amazing gains...and the best part is they both love skiing! There's still about a month left of skiing this season. Hopefully we'll get the boys up on the hill at least two or three more times. We all look forward to ski school again next season. I'll miss the little quips and chants that Charlie comes home with. He has a pretty hip, young teacher who has the kids chanting "Shred, shred the gnars, gnars. Let's rock dudes and dudettes. Bogus-Basin-Buffalos. Shred the pow pow." And many more. Here are their report cards. Charlie is the guy on the right wearing green and orange.

 

Cole is also on the right