Snow Day

Left the city behind for the kids' Settimana Bianca, the school gives them a week off to ski. Last year we skied the German Alps but this year we stayed closer to home. Thankfully their was lots of snow in the mountains but none of it on the steep mountainous roads we were driving on.

There was one pristine field we passed, and it called out to the kids to leave their footprints. If there had been a place to pull over we would have stopped and let them roll and run in it.

Upon arriving at Campo Felice, an hour and a half outside Rome in L'Aquila, the kids stepped out of the car and immediately started shivering. It was zero degrees...a far cry from the 40 they are used to.

But the ski-lifts and the kids on sleds distracted them, and Steve predicted that before the afternoon was out they would work up a sweat and take off their coats in the bright sun.

Brendan was our straggler and decided maybe he'd just sled. But stubborn me wouldn't let him go out on his own. I wanted to be on the slopes as a family. (Trevor reminds me lately that he will be leaving for a mission in two years, AHH, and this makes me scramble for fun family activities to do together, so he can take those memories with him when we are far away)

Steve showed Brendan how to snow plow again so he could see their was nothing to it.

And Brendan took a deep breath and fought his fears and put on his skis. He had a few falls on the rope tow and bunny slopes and got angry with me for forcing him to do things, but he got the hang of it and before we knew it we were all flying down the slopes together, racing each other. Of course I had to blame the wind on my red, teary eyes, not my happy heart leaking out my eyes.

And as predicted, after a few hours on the slopes, the kids had their coats off. We decided we'd better get a quick bite to each and fuel up, so we stomped off in our ski boots to the cafe.

Brendan got a burger and fries which was just a meat patty between two slices of Italian bread and no condiments. When you are hungry you eat everything without complaints.

We hit the slopes again for the last two hours . Steve stayed with Brendan on the beginning/medium slopes. Brendan had an adoring flock or girls from school watching him and never fell the rest of the day. Natalie and I took off for the medium runs. She was flying down the mountain on this steep section, and I was amazed how brave she was. At one point she also passed a group of kids from school, and they all started yelling "Hey Natalie" as she zipped past them. Trevor got tired of us slow pokes and went off to try some difficult runs and bit it once or twice. One time he looked up after a wipe-out on Monte Rotondo 2064 meters(Round Mountain) and saw this white angel. Took him a second to realize he wasn't dead and this was just an ice sculpture. He came down looking like the abominable snow man covered in white. Steve tried to find Natalie and I, as Brendan was with his groupies, but we kept missing each other on the lifts. So poor Steve had to ski on his own. 4 o'clock came too fast, but everyone had a blast.

No bones were broken and 4 of the five were still smiling as we headed down the mountain...

family fun days just don't get better than this....