Missouri Superstars!!

When Rob and I were looking at residency programs, we looked up the usual--crime rates, schools, cost of living, ski resorts . . . ridiculous, I know, but it is important to Rob. Miraculously, there is a "resort" 30 minutes from our house, so we checked it out this week. It was about what I was imagining--similar to the dump hill we skied on in Michigan, but it was absolutely perfect for our family! Okay, so it is ridiculously expensive ($42 per lift ticket) but at least the kids were free. Being the cheapskates that we are, we stayed ALL day (we're talking 8 hours!!!) to make sure we got our money's worth.

And it was SO worth it! The snow was slushy so it slowed the boys down--Rob took Robbie down the "Black Diamond" and I actually couldn't keep up with Ty. People in Missouri have never seen the like--most of the adults skied at the same level as my boys (some much worse) and then to see my little three-year-old just about melted their hearts! I can't begin to tell you how many people were asking us about them and chatting about our little family--we were like the talk of the whole place. (Now I must say that our kids are no novelty in Utah, it is commonplace to see little ones skiing and even much better than my boys, but here they are superstars!) My favorite moment, however, was when we were hanging out in the lodge while Rob did his lone run. As I said before, we were so the rave (it's not like this place is big) so when Robbie points out the window and says, "Hey, there's Dad!" and then everyone (not exaggerating) looks out the window and sees Rob ski down the hill, it fell completely silent as if they were watching some kind of Olympian. Totally hilarious!

Scary moment--when Robbie couldn't quite get on the lift and I couldn't quite lift him in time and the people didn't quite seem to notice that I was HOLDING my DANGLING child five feet off the ground! I yelled back at them to stop the lift (again, I am still dumbfounded they didn't see this child hanging from the lift by his arms!) and they finally did--had Robbie drop into their arms and then left me to jump off myself--nice guys! :) But . . . I would still go again. The boys said they want to ski every day!