First Family Ski Trip!

A couple of weeks ago, we got the opportunity to take Lainee and Sophie skiing for the very first time!! Prior to having kiddos, Nate and I enjoyed snowboarding together. I actually took snowboarding for a college credit when I was in school.....best class yet!! I started skiing when I was in high school I think. Now don't get me wrong, I am not claiming to be a great skier/snowboarder, but I enjoy doing it for recreation.

So....when we received a note from Lainee's school one day about taking a family ski day on the upcoming Friday they had off from school at a hugely discounted rate for pass and rental you bet we were super pumped!!! I honestly think Nate and I were more excited for the kids than the kids were excited for the kids :) My super fantastic Mom was able to watch Hailey so we could enjoy the day with the big girls. Had a fleeting moment of picturing myself skiing down the bunny hill with Lainee or Sophie between my own skis and Hailey in a backpack carrier. It wouldn't be that hard right?? Lol! Then I came back to reality and remembered just how blessed I am to have my Mom near to help with the girls :) So I filled out the information sheet and wrote a check and sent it in. Check, check....we were going skiing with our 3 and 5 year olds....Nate and I, who hadn't skied ourselves in close to 10 years....this was going to be....MEMORABLE in the very least!

So Friday rolls around and we are all very excited! As a parent I have learned to try to keep my own personal excitement about trying new things with the girls a little bit in check just in case....so if they are not wild about it like I am, my heart will not break :) We packed our lunches, because Nate and I were in the midst of Phase One of the South Beach Diet ( a story for another day), got all bundled up and got ready for the day.

We arrived shortly before the slopes opened and got our rentals and made our way to the bunny hills. I have to admit, I was pretty confident with my own skiing ability but I had not a clue how to teach a 3 or 5 year old how to do it! So we made our way to the conveyor belt and threw the kids on it and followed them up! Side note: relishing in the last couple months of my 20's, I DID feel quite old when we showed up and realized that tow ropes are no longer and have been replaced by conveyor belts for the bunny hills....when did this happen? I mean seriously, I was so happy they were because I have no idea how the girls would have made it up a tow rope, but still.... Anyways, there we were at the top of the hill. I had noticed there was a ski school going on right next to us and was watching and listening to the instructor as I was riding the conveyor belt in search of some knowledge of how to teach the girls.....

OF COURSE in our society we would teach young children how to ski using junk food analogies! The "snowplow" I remembered learning is now called "pizza" and when you want them to turn their skis parallel they need to do "french fries". Sad that this is the case but jumped on the bandwagon and used this vocabulary anyways.

I started out with Lainee between my skis showing her the "pizza" and how to make her way down the hill making controlled turns instead of just bombing the hill. Nate was working with Sophie who was having a bit harder time figuring this skiing stuff out.

Lainee was skiing with pretty good control in just a matter of hours. It is AMAZING how fast kids learn things....and with no fear at that! We got to the point where Lainee was asking me to let her go down on her own....this was UNBELIEVABLY hard for me to do. I never imagined it would be that hard to just "let go" of her. Of course my motherly mind started thinking about how many more times I will have to "let go" of her in the future and that this time will probably be one of the easiest. But I finally did let her go and she did great! She was really figuring it out and more importantly loving every minute of it!!

Eventually we grew tired of the bunny hill so we took the chairlift up that had a green slope. I grew anxious as we got closer to our turn on the lift because I was with Sophie and literally had to pull or carry her as she is 3 and wasn't quite getting the hang of things as quickly. We made it on and rode it up without incident and had a great time heading down. Let me tell ya....skiing with Sophie between my legs in a squat snowplow position is hard work!

Overall, it was a fantastic day! We ran into quite a few friends from Lainee's school and really spent some quality family time outdoors learning something fun! Can't wait for many more of these fun family day trips in the years to come. As long as the girls never ask to go down any dangerous slopes or to go off with some snowboarder they just met on the chairlift ;) Seriously...I am going to have to figure out how to be a mother of three girls sometime in the near future!

Sophie all tuckered out from a long day of "skiing"

This is Lainee skiing all by herself!

Lainee and I on the chairlift

Silly Lainee at lunch

Nate and Sophie riding the chairlift

Me and my girls :)

Nate and Sophie

Sophie riding up the conveyor belt...I was pretty impressed she could do that by herself!

Daddy and his girls

Sophie, age 3 and Lainee, age 5 skiing for the first time.

On the way to Devil's Head

Devil's Lake State Park

Let me just start by saying I LOVE THIS PARK!! Funny we have been in the Madison area since 1998 and did not discover this small Wisconsin gem until last year!! Unfortunately we were unable to get there often this summer. Having a newborn and our moving saga are mostly to blame.
But we finally made it there this weekend and had a blast. Lainee, Sophie and Nate played in the sand and water most of the time. Burying Nate in the sand has become a yearly tradition. They have a blast and get many interesting looks from other kids when Nate's head is sticking out of the sand :) My mom, dad and I took turns entertaining Hailey, who overall was pretty good for the day trip. I love watching Nate and the girls play...he really is a wonderful Dad.
It was an absolutely gorgeous day and surprisingly was not super crowded. My parents met us out there and enjoyed the beautiful hidden WI gem with us. We highly recommend this state park!!

The big "V"

Yes my friends, the time has come for Nate to go in and get the big V. In case you are not following, that is a Vasectomy. After having three girls we decided our life 10 years from now was going to be drama central and that we are not going to "try just one more time for that boy". Although we laugh and joke about Nate building himself a man-cave, I think it will become a reality in the future just for his survival :)

The procedure itself is not so bad. It is performed at our family practice clinic and start to finish only took about an hour and a half. And although I was there to drop him off and take him home, I was actually with Lainee in the clinic for her 5 year check-up. He is a little loopy from the pain meds and a little sore, but other than that seems fine.

Some people think we are crazy for permanently giving up our ability to have more kids at the ripe old age of 30...We think we are crazy for being 29 and 30 and already having 3 kids!! So yes we are still "young" but we have been blessed with three beautiful, healthy kiddos who we love very much.

I also wanted to thank my brave husband for "taking one for the team"! It takes an awesome guy to have surgery on his "man-parts" so I don't have to spend the rest of my life pregnant or on birth control.

Now for the frozen peas.... :)

Welcome!

Welcome to the Diers Family Blog.

I was inspired to start a family blog by a good friend of mine, Bethany Nill, who has an awesome blog that I read regularly. Life is flying by and I feel as though I am not doing a great job of recording all of our wonderful memories both by pictures or writing. I am hoping that doing this blog will better allow me to record and share our memories. I used to really like to write so I am hoping to regain that joy as well.

Today is August 15th, 2011 and I am a 29 year old Stay-at-home mother/wife. My husband, Nathan, and I have three beautiful girls: Lainee(5), Sophie(3) and Hailey(4 months). We currently live in a home we purchased in 2006 and renovated almost entirely. It was the perfect starter home but we are in the process of selling this home and buying a new home in Sun Prairie. For a long time we have hoped to be closer to Madison, as Nate works on the West side and commutes an hour or more each way to work and my family lives in the Madison area. So Sun Prairie seemed like a happy medium as we still want to maintain our friendships in Beaver Dam. We hope to be closing on both houses the first or second week in September.

We have been blessed, yes I said blessed, with three girls!! They are all very different and awesome in their own ways. It is so funny because everyone reacts the same way when I tell them I have three girls....Oohhhh your poor husband. Haha. It is what it is right?!

Well that is enough for now...hopefully I will get this blog thing figured out and my posts will become more interesting with time :)