Some sad news. President Hinckley, the beloved leader and prophet of our church (The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints) passed away this evening at the age of 97 years old. Our family loved him. I'm grateful for all that he has done to help the church and to also help us as individuals to become better people. He will be missed, and not forgotten!!
We attempted to go skiing for the first time this last Monday. We had been planning the trip for about a month and thought that we were prepared. When the day finally arrived we spent the morning making lunches, running to the bank, and a quick trip to Wal mart to buy scarves. We finally arrived at Monarch Mountain at about 1:45. We then signed up for lessons for the whole family. Ryan and Brayden were too young to have a group lesson so they each got a private lesson. The rest of us were able to have a group lesson together. We then proceeded to get our boots and skis, easier said than done with four kids that have never worn ski boots before. The kids could barely walk and were not afraid to complain loudly about being hot (they were still in their snow pants, coats, hats, and gloves). We finally got all geared up and ready to ski, it was now about 2:45 pm. Ryan and Brayden left with their instructors and the four of us went outside with our instructor. We started by learning how to get up when we fall, and how to walk up the mountain with our skis on (this information would prove to be very useful as the day progressed). Then our lesson progressed to learning how to make a pizza shape, or wedge with our skis, now the info on how to get up when we fall was coming in handy. All of us were doing pretty good, except Alyssa. She kept falling and became very frustrated. She started to cry (DRAMA, DRAMA, DRAMA). We all became her cheerleaders and would shout words of encouragement to her, because we definitely could not go to her and help her up, that would require us to move with skis on and that was taking a huge chance of one of us skiing down the hill backwards. Anyway she finally got up, with the instructors help, and our lesson continued. We then got to practice skiing a little way and stopping by making the pizza shape with our skis. Alyssa, of course, would not even attempt this. She was standing in the same spot during the whole lesson. The time had finally come for us to learn how to ride the lift and actually ski down the bottom part of the mountain. At this point we saw Brayden skiing down the mountain and waving at us, I must admit I was happy that he picked it up so fast, but a little jealous too, because at this point I was still standing knocked kneed with my skiis in the pizza shape. Our instructor then tells us that we can get in line and ride the lift, as we are making our way over to the lift he then tells us that it is closed and time to head inside. It was already 4:00 and time for the place to close. So basically we spent $500 on lessons and skis, not to mention drive time, food, and snowpants for everyone and some of us didn't even get to ski. What a day!!!
