Bogus

Because life isn't difficult enough, we decided to go skiing on Friday. I'm pretty sure it's not like this for everyone, but when the Baker's set out to do something like this, it's an all-day-out-of-control-exhausting adventure. We left the house at a reasonable hour (11:30) with almost everything we needed. We had been pro-active the night before and gathered up all of our ski and snowboard stuff from last year and set it all by the front door, ready to be loaded into the car in the morning. Gloria outgrew her snowboard boots, so our only scheduled stops would be a couple of thrift stores to track down a new pair and the ski office to pick up our passes. When Friday morning dawned (it doesn't actually dawn at the Baker house until 10-ish), we realized we had a decision to make. A major, life-altering decision: should Gloria ski or snowboard this season???? She tried both last year and seemed to like skiing better but we ended up having a long, drawn out, controversial, door-slamming discussion about which one she should work on this season. At any rate, we would have to either invest in new snowboard boots or some form of a ski package that would include skis and ski boots. Who knew there were so many options??? When we finally left the house, the set-in-stone decision was to find skis and ski boots. We hit a couple of thrift stores in Meridian in hopes that a nice, used pair in her exact size would magically fall into our hands. No luck. We went to a couple more thrift stores in Boise- same story. We decided it might be a good idea to lease a package for the year from Sports Authority so we headed that direction. After finding out the not-unreasonable-but-out-of-our-budget price was $120.00, we went back to plan A. We finally hit the jackpot at The Youth Ranch on Chinden. Not only did they have the perfect pair of skis but we also found a pair of purple ski boots in the exact size we were looking for. The day before, we had been in the same store looking for a ski jacket for me and had settled on a large black and red men's jacket that was at least better that the purple and red puffy one I wore last year but I wasn't very excited about it. I took one more look around before we paid for the skis and found a lovely light green snow jacket that fit me perfectly! This served two purposes- a pretty coat for me and a good red and black ski jacket for Zach who had pretty much outgrown the one he wore last year. Hooray! Now all we had to do was go to the shop and adjust the skis, grab a bite to eat and hit the ski office for the passes. While Rob was adjusting the skis I took one last look through our ski stuff and realized we had forgotten Gloria's snow pants!! Grrrr!! We were all starving, so we ate and then hit another thrift store. No luck. By this time we were downtown and there aren't any Targets, Walmarts or Shopkos anywhere in the vicinity so we finally found a sports store clear out off of Boise Avenue and bought a good pair of snow pants that were half price. . . You can imagine that our moods had all soured somewhat but we were trying to look on the bright side as we filled our gas tank and headed to the ski office. Getting the passes was mostly painless and we headed up the mountain around 3 p.m. You'd think the hard part was behind us, but you'd be wrong. Everyone else decided to go up to the mountain today, too, since the conditions were nearly perfect but it left us without a parking space. We finally found one at the upper lodge and Rob assured us there were stairs nearby that we could climb down to get to the bunny hill. We piled out of the car as snow gear seemed to explode around us. Rob's days of simply snowboarding with Dale, having only himself to worry about, are long gone. It would have been funny to watch, but living it was entirely unhumorous. We all needed help getting our gear on and Rob was the only one who could do it. It was frustrating, to say the least.

We finally managed to get our stuff on and we went in search of the stairs to take us where we needed to go. No such stairs exist. At least not where we could find them. We did find a cat track that took us a little closer but we ended up "walking" down a very steep hill just to get to the lower lodge. This story just can't do justice to the way I was feeling but I tried to stay positive even as my calves were aching and my heart was pounding out of my chest. We made it to the conveyor that goes to the top of the bunny hill just as. . . the conveyor stopped conveying. The only option left to us was to. . . walk up the conveyor. Of course, just after we reached the top, it started moving again. I felt like I should apologize to the other skiers, feeling certain it was somehow our fault!!! On the bright side, I managed to take a few good pictures and it was an absolutely beautiful day- weather wise.

Rob took Gloria up on the coach when she was ready and she did really well.

Zach was afraid he'd forgotten how to snowboard, but he did just fine and really enjoyed himself.

The lodge was looking very inviting to me and Rob was ready to take the kids to a more challenging hill so I let them go with my blessing.

I relaxed in the lodge with a cup of hot cocoa and waited . . . and waited. . . and waited. After about an hour I went outside to look for them and finally ran into Zach who had been wandering around aimlessly by himself looking for me. We had somehow missed each other in the lodge and he was very happy to see me. Apparently he had gotten separated from Rob and Gloria when their skis took them to a steeper run. He had no problem making it down the hill on his snowboard but he was a little worried about how Rob and Gloria were doing. It wasn't long before Rob came skiing up- alone. He quickly assured me that Gloria was close behind and I caught a glimpse of her orange coat-but he was hurrying to find out if Zach had made it back. He looked a little worse for wear:

Gloria was crying when she skied up to us and was very, very cold. It turns out when the three of them got off the lift, Rob was hoping to take a sharp turn and hit an easy cat track to take the kids down. Zach made the turn, but Gloria didn't so Rob followed her down to a much more difficult run. He ended up half carrying her and half holding her up as they both tumbled their way down the hill. They were both tired, cold and very hungry. Thankfully Rob has enough energy for all of us so he brought us our dinner and set us all at ease with his we'll-get-through-this attitude.

He hiked back up the hill by himself to the car and pulled it around to the loading area by the bunny hill. He came and got us and our stuff and loaded everything into the toasty car. The trip back down the mountain was uneventful and we were actually able to laugh about the events of the day. Gloria wasn't laughing, though, she was sleeping.

Will we ever go skiing/snowboarding again??? Stay tuned. . .