Living Up to Ski Week

I love Lake Tahoe in the winter. It's painfully pretty. But then, it's often pretty darned cold too. And I'm not a skiier. So, that generally leaves me sipping hot chocolate by the fire.

But in our little corner of California, we have this funny little week off school in the middle of February. Although in our district, it's technically known as Winter Break, everyone calls it Ski Week. That's because they instituted this break to try and keep the families around here from pulling their kids out of school to go skiing. Don't know how well that works.

Last year, we did go to Tahoe during Ski Week, but there was no skiing involved, just sledding. This year was different, although it turned out that Daddy had unknowingly booked a cabin just a few doors down from the one we rented last year. The drive in was easy. It wasn't snowing. It was warm and the roads were very, very clear. It was sunny every day and there was significantly less snow when we left than when we got there.

And this year, we were there for Smunch's birthday. For his birthday, he and Mam went to ski school at one of the smaller, lower-key resorts.The outcome of a day worth of ski school was somewhat predictable. Smunch wasn't in the greatest of health (or mood) for starters. He's not fearless. He's cautious. He gets frustrated easily. I talked to him at lunchtime and he wasn't altogether thrilled with the experience.

Mam, on the other hand. Well Mam is fearless, she's almost always in a good mood and although she's easily frustrated, she bounces back quickly.Smunch was tired and grumpy at the end of the day. Mam was just tired. It didn't seem like either of them had really learned a whole lot, each of them falling several times on the way down the tiny little slope in the lesson area. But they could stay up on skis for a few seconds, at least.Daddy went skiing on his own while the kids were in ski school. Me? I took a book and sat by the fire reading when I wasn't out tromping around trying to find the kids with my telephoto lens. There was a lot more reading than photography.

With two exhausted kids, we left as soon as ski school got out. We went back to the cabin and jumped in the hot tub (which turned out to be way too hot) and appreciated our view for a little while...