Busy weekend for Sennet. On Saturday we went back to the Rainier Beach Pool, almost a weekly occurrence these days, for more swimming. He’s perfecting his cannonball’s into the pool, and is working on “tricks” underwater, like spinning around and trying to touch the bottom of the pool. Swim lessons need to start soon!

Then on Sunday, he had his first day of ski lessons at The Summit at Snoqualmie (ski resort 55 miles east of Seattle in the Cascades). The lessons are every Sunday from 9:00 am to 10:45, for four weeks. Since it was the first day and I wanted to be sure we made it on time, we left a bit early. We were on the road by 7:00 am. It was clear roads until about 10 miles from the pass, where the resort is located. Rain quickly turned to snow/slush. Everyone (well, almost everyone) slowed down and we crept along at about 35 miles an hour. A couple miles before the turn off to the resort was a big, 6-car pile-up blocking all the lanes except one. It must have been recent, because the backup wasn’t too bad for us and we got through fairly quickly. (We learned later that they closed the pass for a time because of the heavy, wet snow and accidents.)

We arrived at The Summit around 8:00, got Sennet’s lift ticket, put his boots in a locker, used the bathroom, and were out at the meeting place on time at 8:45. It was really snowing now, huge, heavy, wet flakes. Just in the time we had been there (just under an hour) it had probably snowed a couple inches. With the pass closed and the weather, not many people made it to the 9 o’clock lesson. There were probably 25 kids, and one instructor said they had expected about 100. They split the kids into groups by experience and Sennet’s group had about 8 kids. I had thought that I was supposed to stay with him for the lesson, but they did not want parents to even be where the kids could see them, so they could concentrate on the lesson. I hung around for a bit to make sure he was good, took some pictures, and then moved off. Since I had over an hour, I went back to the car and got my skis and took a few runs until close to the end of the lesson.

When I got back to the group, there seemed to be smiles all around on the kids. When I asked Sennet if he had had fun, he said, “Not really. Not too much fun. We didn’t ski. I want to ski.” Since it was the first lesson, most of the time was spent on getting familiar with the equipment, walking in the boots, moving with the skis on, etc. The instructor said that Sennet had taken a couple runs down the bunny slope and made a turn or two and was learning the snow plow. At the end of the lesson they made snow angels, built a snowman,  and had a snowball fight – and he really liked doing all that. The group hadn’t yet done the “magic carpet” which was a moving walkway that carries the kids to the top of the bunny slope so they can go down. (This magic carpet had a cover on it, which was cool.) When Sennet’s lesson was over I took him on the magic carpet a few times so he could see what it would be like – the class is supposed to use it next week. I held him under his arms while he was between my legs and we skied down the bunny slope – and he really liked that. Hopefully he’ll have more fun next week…