FUN-orama!

We recently returned from a family vacation to Panorama near Invermere, B.C. The kids were pretty happy to miss a few days of school, and we were happy to take time off work. Darrin had not been skiing since the mid-90's and the last time I can remember skiing was the first time I was away from Carlin when he was a baby (about 14 years ago...) I grew up skiing a lot with my family - and, back in the day was not too bad if I do say so myself! :-) Darrin also skied a lot in his younger days and was a pretty advanced skier. Carlin had been on one school ski trip about five years ago and Brett and Sierra had never tried it. The day before we left Brett was really sick, so we weren't sure how things would turn out. However, despite all of this, it turned out to be a fantastic time and we will have lots of memories to take with us....

We put Sierra and Brett in the ski school for the first day. Panorama is very family orientated and their kids' adventure ski school is really well done. It included a supervised lunch and all day lessons for a very reasonable price. This gave us a chance to remember how to ski and give Carlin some refresher pointers. Darrin and I were both surprised at how quickly we remembered our skills.

Carlin was pretty scared at first, but very quickly got the hang of it and was up to blue runs his first day. We were impressed with how quickly he improved and how well he did.





Sierra very effectively learned to snow plow during ski school and was adamant that this was all she would do - just snow plow straight down the mountain - every time! She learned pretty quickly that this is hard on the leg muscles and we convinced her by day two that she could make turns -which she learned to do really well.

Brett decided right from the beginning of planning this trip that he wanted to snow board. We warned him that people had told us it is much harder to learn and that he might spend most of the time on his butt. After the first day of ski school, he didn't feel ready to join the rest of us, so we put him in the ski school for the second day. This helped a lot and he gained a lot more confidence. He is still pretty cautious and slow, and still spends a lot of time on his butt, but is starting to get the hang of it.

By day three, we were able to ski together as a family and had a great time. We discovered some fun trails that were easy enough for Brett to feel some confidence, but also provided areas for Darrin and I to get some speed and do some skiing that was fun for us. We went to the summit, which is all black runs except for one blue trail called "getmedown", which is what we took. It was clear, warm, and sunny on the summit and there was an amazing amount of snow on that mountain. It was beautiful and peaceful, with not that many people skiing mid-week.

We also enjoyed evening excursions in the "village" - riding the gondola from our condo up to the rest of the village. One evening we just went out for hot chocolate and walked around, and the next evening we hung out in the outdoor hotpools.

Darrin and I both seemed to have picked up the cold Brett had before we left, so we are now resting and recovering from the trip. It was a great time - and well worth it! We are hoping to do much more skiing in the future...