Happy new year!

A day late but hey it counts!

Madeline just wrapped up two weeks of snowboarding lessons, she is doing quite well. I've been taking her to the little ski hill in town. I never used it as a child, my dad always took us up to the "real" mountain since he was/is an avid snowboarder. I'm loving this little hill. It is less then 15 minutes from my house, has two tow ropes for the kids, and is quite cheap. Perfect for learning on.

Right next door to the hill is the skating rink which we are just starting to use as well. Taking the kids ice skating is rather difficult when there are 3 of them, two unable to skate, a mother who does not skate and is accident prone enough that she doesn't want to learn at this point in her life, and a father who barely skates! Madeline attempted it last week, she fell and fell and fell. I could not believe that she kept trying but she did and is asking for lessons. Another thing to add to my list of things to do I guess.

Crap. I put the pics in the wrong order and I'm not interested in moving everything around right now so we'll just go backwards. This is Madeline at the top of the little rope tow they use to teach the kids how to use on. She is up towards the top middle in the pink jacket.

This rope goes very slow and is literally on the ground, they have to pick it up and then kneel down, hold on and keep their balance while it pulls them up. A rope tow is actually quite tricky to learn how to use it.

And here she is on the left snowboarding down! She can turn and stop without falling, sometimes, now she just needs lots of practice.