What a busy day – they should sleep well tonight!
The morning started with the internet connection playing up again so first things first we called Comcast and got an engineer scheduled to come out and fix it. The good thing with Comcast, unlike BT, is that we called them at 8:30am and the engineer was logged to come and fix things between 10am and noon.
Although this was clearly very good service it did mean that I had to stay at home while Tracy and the boys went swimming. They soon returned, just as Comcast arrived, and the morning was spent having the internet fixed – apparently it has never actually been working correctly since we’ve been here – and the boys having a quick play on the xbox before we set off up the mountain.
We packed the car and left just after 12:30pm. It was a nice day and the temperature was hovering around 50 degrees. We all took a guess of what the temperature would be up at the ski slopes and we all failed miserably! We all went for ~38 degrees but as it turned out, the highest temperature we actually recorded was 76! The sun was very warm up there and by the end of the ski lesson we may actually have had two boys who had caught the sun.
We got them both kitted up and waited for their instructors. Toby’s arrived first and took him off to get used to the skis again and took a little tour round the magic carpet. After a couple of goes round there, and with Harry still waiting for his instructor, Toby set off towards his first go in the chair lift and the up the slope called Holiday.
Harry eventually found his instructor, an older chap called Anchor. At least I think that’s what he was called! Anchor tried to engage Harry with some conversation. Silly Anchor. Harry turned into a mute and Tracy and I were somewhat concerned as the two of them set of to the Holiday slope as well. Would Harry answer any of Anchor’s questions across the next two hours or would he just shrug his shoulders!?
As it turned out we needn’t have worried as by the time we collected Harry two hours later they were chatting and they even gave each other a hug as we left!
We had seen both Harry and Toby going up the Holiday slope on the chair lift and we’d seen Harry come down once and Toby a few times – including a few bounces on his bottom! But it has to be said, for a first time on the actual slope Toby came on in leaps and bounds.
httpv://youtu.be/b5D6Iiwv4FY
While his parents were suitably impressed, the instructor did inform us that he needed to improve a few areas of his technique. Apparently the bottom half of his body is good but the top half has a tendency to lean and he keeps his arms behind his back. But he’s only had about 4 hours of lessons so the fact that he was coming down a slope by himself was pretty awesome!
We didn’t see much of Harry on the Holiday slope but this is because he and Anchor had clearly gone exploring all over the place! He’d been down Holiday, Gallery, Silver Nugget, Silver Fir, Black Diamond plus a little cross country between the different slopes. He’d also completed some ski-ing backwards, 360 degree spins and little jumps – all intentionally as well. Anchor informed us that Harry had worked incredibly hard and was a really good skier. So despite the lesson not starting on the best of terms, they parted with a big hug and Harry declaring that Anchor was the best instructor he’d had and wanted to have more lessons with him.
Amazing what happens when you start talking to someone!
