Rachel loves winter

Rachel loves snow and all things winter.

In the last couple of months, Rachel has been skiing, skating, sledding, and snowman making.  We've had a decent amount of snow and cold, but Rachel seems to enjoy it just fine if there's just a dusting.

Skiing
3 videos: (sorry the last one is shaky but listen to what Rachel says)

Rachel's first day of skiing was with Aunt Cynthia on a snowshoe.  We hiked up and Rachel skiied down the path, holding on to my poles as I ran beside her.  I was so impressed with how much better her balance was this year.

The next time was down the street at a little tiny sledding hill.  She skied down to Jason (about 10 feet), then Jason picked her up and carried her up to the top of the hill, and she skied down again.  Repeat 35 times.

The first resort day at Keystone, Rachel had no interest in the little magic carpet.  She went to the Ranger chair and soon asked her Daddy to 'keep going DOWN! I don't want to go UP!'.  Daddy obliged and took her down Silverspoon to the Montezuma chair, skiing beside her as she held on to his poles.  She was pretty tired at the bottom and not keen on waiting in line, but happy.  After a break, she went out with me and I went 'too slow!' and I got in trouble for making her go back to the chair, when she didn't want to go up.  So Jason skied with her down from Summit House all the way to the bottom of Keystone, accidentally missing the gondola mid-station and skiing the icy blue face above River Run.  Quite a long way for a bent over Daddy, who was sore for days afterward.

The videos above were taken at the park down the street, where Rachel practiced skiing 'ALL BY MYSELF!' and we practiced ways to get her back up the hill without hurting ourselves.  We tried making a tow out of the chariot ski poles, but in the end we didn't come up with a great towing method for uphill.

We had another resort day last week.  Rachel and I skied together in the morning in the learning area.  Rachel was not keen to wait in line or have help from the lift attendant to get on the chair.  We did a few runs on the chair, but Rachel was frustrated to have to go up and she only wanted to go down.  We did the magic carpet a couple of times, but that run was too short.

We'll see what happens with skiing adventures next.

Skating
Rachel and I went to the outdoor rink in Louisville and tried skating.  It was chilly, lightly snowing, and crowded.  Rachel rented double blade skates, and could walk around the floor with them well.  She didn't like the idea of pushing around a chair, so instead she 'skated' in between my legs.  She did ok skating, but once we discovered you could pull someone along the ice in a sled, skating didn't seem as interesting as zooming around in a sled.