It's a miracle that Paige snowboards! Because the history of getting Paige on the slopes is filled with broken promises! Enough to turn anyone away from the lure of majestic mountains. Luckily, Paige is resilient! She weathered disappointment and deceit and is old enough (I think) to look back and laugh at two stories that were once quite traumatic for her!
Broken Promise Story 1: Paige would have been about 5 when the rest of our family could ski with some competence so we decided to put Paige in Kid Care/Beginner Ski Lessons. Paige was reluctant about getting left behind so we raved about the fun she'd have in the ski lesson and pointed out the PROMISE in the brochure for "Unlimited Hot Chocolate" when the tots came in after their ski instruction. The thought of ALL the hot chocolate she wanted sealed the deal and Paige went happily into Kid Care and the rest of us enjoyed the day skiing.
When we picked up Paige after a great day of skiing, she did not look happy! She announced that when she went to get her 3rd cup of hot chocolate, a MEAN lady told her she'd had enough to drink! What? No more hot chocolate? The selling point to get Paige to agree to stay at the Kiddie Ski School....and she was denied all-the-hot-chocolate-she wanted? The day lives in infamy in Paige's memory!
Broken Promise Story 2: Just a season or two later, Paige was skiing pretty well and she seemed to have put the hot chocolate incident behind her. We were in Tahoe and Brent decided that if we put Paige in a Semi-Private Ski Lesson (just 2 students) for the morning, we could probably get her skills up to par so she could keep up with the rest of us by the afternoon. The Semi-Private Lesson versus a Group Ski School was a splurge but the resort brochure PROMISED that more individualized instruction was well worth the extra cost.
Unfortunately, instead of a getting an instructor who was interested in teaching; Paige was paired with the instructor whose sole interest turned out to be the other student in Paige's class! Picture a ski instructor who looks like a college frat boy, a teen girl who looks like Vanessa Hudgens and a 7 year old Paige.
On their 2nd run of the day, the teacher and teenager abandoned Paige at the top of the hill. Unfortunately, Paige didn't know her way back down! Eventually one of us spotted Paige sitting in a snowbank; wet, cold, and miserable! I think Brent made sure the flaky ski instructor was fired so he couldn't leave other youngsters on the mountain while he ran off with teenage girls!
With Paige's snowboard skills today you'd never guess she got off to such a rough start and once had such harrowing times on the slopes! Which just proves the Friedrich Nietzsche quote: "That which does not destroy, strengthens."
