Brodi--Really good on the slopes. Sam--Really not good on the slopes

As most of you know, I am not a skier. Never have been. When I was in High School, my basketball coach strongly recommended that we not going skiing and to be honest, I had no real desire to learn anyway. I had little interest in wearing sticks on my feet, being cold, going down a hill knowing full well that I would probably crash several times. So, I never did it.

Brodi, on the other hand, is a fabulous skier. She grew up skiing with guys. She went at night, she went on weekends. She went all the time. In fact, after we were married, she was even offered a job as a ski instructor up at Snowbird. I believe that one of her biggest disappointments in life was marrying someone that could not ski.

Years ago, I decided that I would give it a go. It was an unmitigated disaster. We went up to the resort and gave it a shot. It was not pretty. We decided to tackle the monster known as the 'Chickadee' hill or mound or bump...I like to think of it as a black diamond run, while Brodi has calmly informed me that this is the hill that 3-year olds learn to ski. Whatever. First time up, I got all the way down the hill. Yes, it took me 20 minutes. Yes, I fell countless times, but I still did it. Little did I know that my skills would be tested.

As we waited in line for the lift to take us up to the top of 'Chickadee', several teachers were taking a bunch of 6/7 year olds up to the top. They were asking adults waiting in line to go up the lift with a couple of the kids. A teacher grabbed me and asked if I could help. With a look of horror on Brodi's face, I said sure. Let me tell you, I was a bit freaked out but I figured that we were just going up the lift together, I could probably manage. As the lift took us up, Brodi was in front of us with 2 kids and she kept looking back at me, giggling as to how I was going to handle this. I calmly reassured the little boy and girl about how fun it was going to be for them to ski, never letting on that they were undoubtedly better skiers than I was. As the lift reached its destination, you basically just hop off and gently ski down a 10 feet little hill before you go down the bigger hill. I kept trying to figure out how to do this gracefully and not hurt or scar these two kids who had put their little lives in my hands. So, I took the easiest way out that I could. As we go the top, I put a gentle, yet firm hand on their backs, pushed them both to the sides as I went straight forward crashing to a halt at the bottom of the little 10 foot hill. Both kids did fine and did not fall. I gave them a thumbsup, told them I tripped and wished them the best. Brodi got a kick out of it.

My last ski experience was waiting at the lift with Brodi, and then slowly sliding backwards. Before we both realized what was going on, I was skiing slowly down the hill backwards including somehow going under an out of bounds rope. I skied backwards about 30 feet and wasn't able to stop myself until I just tipped myself over. Brodi laughed, everyone in the line laughed including about 20 kids under the age of 6 that couldn't believe that 25-year old guy was so clueless on the slopes.

I am going to give it another go during the winter of 2008/09. It may only be one time as Carter is now a better skier than I am. The one nice thing is that I know that I can't really hurt myself on the 'chickadee' slopes at least physically. The only thing that will hurt is my pride. That, I can deal with.