Today was our last “official’ day on the hill. Cleaning out the ski locker all the way down to the spent duct-tape balls, empty Hotties wrappers and that broken goggle lens from January got me all teary-eyed.
This was a ski season I’ll never forget. BIG snow in Tahoe. And more BIG snow in Tahoe. New fat skis. New thooperphat skis. Seven a.m. KAAAHHHBOOOOMS as avvy control woke us up to unreal powder.
Dozens of days of good times on the hill with dozens of family, friends and colleagues. Hundreds and hundreds of runs with Logan and Cody. Logan can ski everything now. Cody’s almost there. It’s an unreal feeling to not have to wait for the kids anymore!
The free wifi in the lodge at Alpine Meadows made it a little easier to work/ski/work/ski. And the 450+ inches of snow made it easy to ski and ski and ski and ski.
Sad to see it end, but it’s time to get back on the bikes. Here’s some video clips from today with the LoganCody knuck’n around the hill. ‘Till next season!
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Cody decided to cut his hair. And then mom did, too!
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Last weekend the LoganCody competed in a cool little air contest at Alpine Meadows. Props to Justin at Snowbomb.com for organizing and dealing with the usual parent BS. (Rant: why do parents CARE so much about prizes for their 6 yo!? Some parents were idiots because this event wasn’t judges like the Olympics…EVERYONE was a winner and that seemed to upset a few Type-A “my-kid-is-fifth-in-the-nation” dorks. Go to Killington then…sheesh!)
Anyway, for those of you who know the little snots, there’s a cool video of the contest. Photos here. Cody’s in the red pants and green sweatshirt. Logan is in all black pants, green sweatshirt. He’s got the yellow Reno Bike Project sticker on top of his helmet. They all got Shane McConkey, Tanner Hall and Johnny Moseley huck dolls and were stoked!
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Holland Project is a very cool all-ages art and music initiative made by and for the young people in Reno and beyond. Kids are introduced to all kinds of diverse music and art, workshops and community service work. In my opinion, Holland picks up on the “real world” where the school district has to leave off.
Volunteers and donors make it all possible… check out Holland’s event calendar for April and May and support what you can.
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I’m a 3rd generation skier raising a 4th generation. Just how many generations before skiing starts to become embedded within our DNA? 
Over the last three weeks, Reno-Tahoe’s seen several winter storms. As I write this, it’s cold outside and all the Tahoe peaks are covered in the good white stuff. This year will be Logan’s (8) third year on the Alpine Meadows ski team. Cody (5) will be starting his first year. Yay! Last year, Logan played hooky from school about 13 days to hit every day of ski team plus the few powder days we had. I expect Logan and Cody will be missing a similar amount of school again this year.
Skiing for us is a lot of time spent together as a family. (See post from 2004.) It means 50+ days of being together. The 50+ days of 1.5 to 2.5 hours in the car together is where Logan gets a massive amount of homework and reading. It means a lot of discipline getting out of bed at 6:30am to be on the road by 7:30am to be in the lodge by 8:30am booting up and ready for 9am ski team start. It means a lot of lodge-time playing foosball, wrestling, eating, goofing off and hanging out with friends and other family. It means a lot of time riding the chairlifts with my kids and good wife talking and singing/making up stupid songs. And, of course, it means skiing! Whether the snow is great or the snow sucks, at least we’re skiing!
Skiing also introduces my kids to mentors like Shane McConkey…who my kids idolize as an “educational role model”. Shane can read. He can also ski, too!
Here’s a video of Cody from last January (2007). He was 4 at the time…about a month before his 5th birthday. Juxtaposed to that is a video of Paul Dugan — the Washoe County School District’s Superintendent (who kicks ass BTW) — giving Logan a reading award when he was in kindergarten 2 years a go.
The point: ski for literacy <grin>.
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Photographer Amy Beck of the Reno Gazette-Journal was at the Reno Rodeo the night Logan and Cody went Mutton Bustin’ and she snagged some killer photos and audio for this slideshow. There’s a few shots of Logan and Cody in the Mutton Bustin’ section (about 2/3rds thru).
Stay tuned for the audio/video we took.
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Link to RGJ.com: Rodeo Kids Slideshow
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It’s mighty depressing to realize that my five-year-old boy Cody is by birth a better dancer than I am and that I shall more than likely be asking him for dancing lessons before he hits puberty. The Chrome Transport booth at the Tour de Nez got Cody’s groove on. Rock on son…
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So we hit the BMX race in Carson City on Sunday and Cody jumped right in to his first BMX race and came away with a trophy…and a yellow snow cone. He was stoked on both. He was so stoked, in fact, he snuggled with his trophy like it was a teddy bear that night. That’s the kind of stuff that makes Dads get all teary-eyed: Catching fish, riding bikes, mud, shooting BB guns, skiing fast…it’s all good.
I grew up while BMX was just moving from Stingray concepts to a legit sport. When I was four the first BMX bikes were just hitting the dirt for the first time. Next to the “pavement-didn’t-exist-in-Crested-Butte therefore I never learned to skateboard” bummer of a childhood, I never really had the chance to race BMX. I went straight to mountain bikes. Unlike ski racing, this is a completely new gig for me. Cody’s one race ahead of me.
The whole race was good times and I like how the BMX season picks up as the snow turns yellow and melts away. I think as a family we’re about to become hooked. Long days at the soccer field listening to parents yap on their cell phones doesn’t seem nearly as exciting as BMX.
I may even have to get out there and start racing with the kids, too. Who else is in?
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