Snow sports have been on our “someday” list for a long time, but we wanted to find the right time to start the kids out. We didn’t want it to be too early – there’s a lot of frustration to push through if you’re only hitting the mountain once or twice a year. Lucy’s 8½ now, and really physically coordinated, so the time seemed right.

This is part of our 100 Things in 2017 challenge. Here’s the full list.

Our plan was to drive out to the northern side of Mount Hood, stay there for a weekend, and hit the slopes for two days. I picked her up from school, and we stopped in Hood River for a nice sushi dinner. Then we drove the last half hour to our lodging, which is a simple couple of rooms above someone’s garage, with very pink carpet.

The next morning we grabbed a proteinful breakfast at (I kid you not) Wake N Baked, which was surprisingly excellent, and drove up to Cooper Spur to get our gear rented. Once we were fitted we stepped outside to find a light but steady rain was falling on our snow day! Kind of a bummer, but we didn’t let it stop us.

Lucy went to ski school for a two hour group lesson, but it turned out she was the only one in her group, so she got 1-on-1 instruction for the morning! She did super well, and graduated from the bunny slope to riding the lift!

After lunch we put on our by-now soaking snow gear and headed out to the slope for an afternoon of boarding together, but we didn’t last very long. The cold had gotten to us, and Lucy’s foot was starting to hurt, so we called it around 2:30.

But our day wasn’t over. Our friend-family happened to be snowboarding at Timberline that day, and they invited us over there to hang out a while! We hit the hot tub (with falling snow!) and sauna to warm up, then went to Oregon’s most iconic bar for dinner. Lucy and Maddie wandered around with her iPod and took some photos.

It was about this time that Becky messaged us with her status for the weekend: a sick dog! She’s fine now, but expect the full story in another post.

The next morning we started home. But first we stopped at the Portland Rock Gym for some bouldering!

Then we went home to rescue Becky from the puking dogs.