We all survived our first day up at Cardrona! (I went up by myself yesterday, but today was the a family of 4 adventure). It was a true treat to rise above the inversion layer in Wanaka and spend some time in the sunshine. The boys were really excited about the magic carpet when we first got there. Ben is fairly cautious and doesn't quite know what to make of skiing (I think that's code for he whines
a fair bit). He's spent plenty of days on the snow, but being Ben he's not that go-go-go on something that he's not 100% sure about. Josh, on the other hand, was whining from the first run that he wanted to go up the chair lift. Dan and I managed about an hour or so on the magic carpet before we'd truly exhausted all parties. Dan went for an hour of skiing on his own and the boys and I refueled in the lodge (plus took the season pass photos). After our snack we somehow managed to get back up to the magic carpet and put on all of our skis before Dan reappeared. I was exhausted just by that effort. After a number of melt downs we decided to split up- I took Josh up the chair and
Dan & Ben stayed on the magic carpet. Josh is a speed freak. He giggles and asked for more the entire run down McDougal's. My legs were on fire, supporting the weight of a 2 1/2 year old with skis and boots on is not easy. After a few crashes we managed to track down Dan & Ben at the bottom of the poma lift. Josh wanted to keep going and I needed to rest my legs. In the end we lasted over 3 1/2 hours at the hill. It was a major effort, but I think we're all game to do it again next weekend.
We were brave and went up for another family ski day at Cardrona. We knew our time span would be short and the ski resort would be very crowded with the school holidays, so we left the house at 7:30am. Dan had everything organized and we even convinced Ben to sleep in his long johns. The first photo is of the sunrise from the ski resort parking lot. The second photo is of the boys at the lodge. The effort to get from the car to the ski resort is almost half the battle. So this week Dan's loaded up the trusty Phil & Ted buggy and off we went (the laundry list is long: 2 kids, 4 pairs of skis, one pair of gumboots, my helmet, one pair of children's ski boots and one lunch box). I carried the poles and we each had on a backpack. Josh is seriously a boy with a mission. He was racing down the magic carpet without even a thought or care about stopping. His brother, on the other hand, is still working on getting himself sorted. Josh threw a huge fit about riding up the chair lift, so I took Ben in for a warm up (after a meltdown) and Dan & Josh rode to the top. Afterwards all Josh wanted was to ride up the chair as a family. Precious little guy! We ended up settling for the poma lift. Unfortunately by this stage in the morning Josh was frozen solid, he still wanted to ride up the chair lift, but he was shaking uncontrollably from the cold and we decided to call it a morning. Solid effort by the boys. We'll make it up the chair life, all 4 of us, maybe next weekend?
