how is he so quick to think of things like that? i think it's good we have such a yin yang relationship. one who questions authority without hesitation and one that doesn't hesistate to follow. back to ober gatlinburg. we go through the same processing as we did friday... except i noticed i was number 312 today to come through compared to 134 on friday.
the older kids took off as soon as they got their skis. the favorite run for them on sunday was the bear run. it's a modest blue square with a speedy little finish that reminds me of the gentle hill by mom and dad's house. it's not very steep AT ALL but boy, you are FLYING at the end. i love to just tuck tight and zoom zoom zoom. i'm getting way ahead of myself here. we met chris' family at the basecamp picnic table. chris' cousin blaine was going to attempt snowboarding. he has a very mild cerebral palsy which has seen proceedure after proceedure. i admit that i was a bit incredulous when he announced that he was going to try this sport. i know chris tried it when we were dating and i remember how difficult he said that it was. so since chris was helping george i decided to give blaine a hand. getting on the lift was a bit bumpy, but the lift guy slowed it down a bit for us to jump on. getting off the lift would prove to be difficult all day for blaine. but, in his defense, it was difficult for ALOT of people snowboarding that day. once we got off the lift helping him clip his foot in was difficult. we fiddled with it for at least 10 minutes. i kept reminding him that by the end of the day he'd probably be able to do this in the dark.
so he made a few runs each one getting better. and with each run he found another clue to unlocking the puzzle that was snowboarding. he found out how to steer, how to fall without getting unclipped, he found out how to clip and unclip his boots. and all the while, not one complaint. his hands were bare and red. his sleeves on his hoodie were soaking up to the elbows. i had my mittens off so i could video easier. everytime i helped him up, the coldness in his hands shot through mine. i offered him my mittens. we even tried to fit them on. his good hand would not fit through the opening. i knew his bad hand had not a chance. so he said, "it's no problem. i'm alright." i just kept thinking, "man, this kid is tough." i remembered while we were waiting in the lift line he mentioned that the snowboard instructing lady had told him that he needed to learn how to pronounce his name. i had half a mind to find her and give her a tongue lashing but blaine took it all in stride. it was his battle and he was choosing to laugh about it so i needed to back down. it took us quite a long time to get down the hillside. he seemed to be getting heavier and heavier. but we started to develop a method for getting up. i'd ski up to him sideways and downslope from him. i'd hold my skis sideways against the hill and against his board so that he wouldn't slide. i'd grab his hands and kick out my downslope foot, giving me the leverage to lift his 14 year old home-grown body. we did this several times the first time down. i thought for sure he'd head in but at the bottom he asked, "ready to go again." "oh yeah!" i said.
blaine in the lift line with henry ahead.the next time down was great. blaine made even more progress. he was still having a hard time stopping. "it would be great if nobody was here. then i wouldn't have to stop." i added- "until you got to the bottom. the trouble is, once you got to the bottom you'd be flying so fast you couldn't stop." on the home stretch he made it all the way, flying the whole way to the "slow" sign, where he prceeded to throw himself to the ground. jerome did the very same thing on friday so he was progressing right on schedule. i kept hoping that his mom was watching. she would be so proud.
"ready to go again?" he asked.
"yep. but after this next time down i'm going to need to stop for a drink."
"yeah i need a drink too. let's just take a break now."
i helped him find the racks and put his board up near my skis. on the way towards our basecamp i met brenda, blaine's mom and chris' aunt. i started to tell her how good blaine was doing becuase i didn't think she had seen us when she gave me a big bear hug. she pulled away and had tears in her eyes.
"you don't know how much this means to me."
i started to tear up as well. it was so neat to be proven wrong. so neat to see him conquer this task and not only do it, but do it well as a first timer. i felt so honored to be sitting and watching this show in the very front row. no, scratch that, i was with the band.
i had to eat, drink, and replenish. i also had to replenish mj's love tank. she missed her mama. sandwiches and granola bars NEVER tasted so good. i really wanted to get out and see a little of my sisters and ski with them a bit. george needed a rest so chris took blaine while i hunted down christina and mike. i headed for the bear run. it was really hard to believe that it was mike's first day on the snowboard. he probably, i decided, is a very quick study- especially when it comes to sports. we all headed down. i helped david a bit on the way. helping blaine taught me a few things about helping a beginner snowboarder so i tried to apply that with david. david bickered with me a bit. "why do i have to clip BOTH feet in?" i reasoned with him "because you've already gotten your lift ticket marked for sitting on your board, and if you continue it'll be marked again and you'll be kicked off the slopes." well, reason cut through to him and he agreed to some help. he kept being scared to stand up. he looked alot like i looked when i first was learning to surf. squatting, holding onto the board with one hand, other hand out to brace for the fall. he seemed to have his own idea of how to get down the mountain so i pointed my skis down and tucked myself in for a nice ride. i went down the blue slope with blaine, chris, and george again. both of the learners did very well. i helped blaine up only twice. and george yelled at me for holding his hand. "i can do it all by myself mommy!" he was quite upset.
i went a few more times with samantha and some others down the bear run before stopping at base camp again. leslie and christina told me that margaret got hurt. i put up my skis and came out. her knee had gotten the worst part of a fall. i nursed franky and took a drink of something close by. i saw chris come off the slopes with george. i really wanted to go once with chris so i yelled at him not to put his skis up. chris' mom took george and chris and i headed to the bear run. chris and i headed down to the bigger lift. right after we caught the lift chris spotted a kid's ski in the brush below.
"i hope that doesn't belong to one of ours."
we craned our necks to see if samantha had both of hers on. she was 5 or 6 lifts ahead of us. i remembered that her and i rode up to bear run together on friday. the lift takes you up along the black diamond run. she thought we were coming down that way and kept crying in a melodramatic way, "i don't want to die. you're going to have to dig my grave mommy! today, you will dig my grave!" she was being so silly. of course at the end of the run she gets right back in line and says, "can we go again?"
so, we squinted our eyes in the snowy glare and found out that indeed, samantha had lost a ski. chris decided to ski down and get samantha's lost ski, then ride back up with the speedy delivery. samantha and i parked ourselves near the top and waited. we took a few pics of the nice view our spot afforded us.
chris didn't come back up with the ski. another guy had gotten to it first. when i saw him with the ski i knew that chris wasn't going to be coming back up. i helped samantha put her skis on and she headed out. by the time i put mine on and headed down she was nowhere to be seen. she's speedy and fearless- at least with the blue squares.
as the day wound down i started snapping more pics.
christina's pics from ski trip:
You sure do have a witty hubby!
ReplyDeleteCarseats??? That WAS perfect!