Posers on the Pow

Winter persists. While this winter has not yet won any superlative, it is currently in the running for Most Likely to Snow. It has snowed too many times for me to count and it is snowing again today. Since snow is queen around here lately, we decided this weekend to give in and play along with the weather.

In the Olympic spirit, we jumped right in to winter sports and....snowboarded. Why start small? Honestly, this was Forced Family Fun executed in reverse. FFF is usually implemented by the parents to keep the family bonds strong. But in this instance, the boys were exerting the force. They have been asking, begging, annoying us for so long to go snowboarding.  And we have avoided taking them for as long as they have been asking.

Why would we not take them? Well....there are reasons. We don't ski much less snowboard. My husband has a clinical aversion to temperatures under 60. And neither my husband nor I look forward to injury. So we put it off.

The closest we have ever been to snowboarding is noticing the uncanny resemblance that one certain snowboarder has to one certain stay-at-home mom.  I'm sorry...I had to throw that in. The opportunity was just too good to pass.

In defense of our resistance, there wasn't enough snow last winter. At least that's what we said even though there was plenty of the manmade stuff. Now that Winter 2013-2014 has thrown its name into the superlative running, we can't use that excuse any longer. But last week as the boys looked longingly out at the cold, frozen land which is our front yard, something came over me. A desire to join with our sons in their quest for adventure and fun set in and took hold. We could meet them where they live instead of always expecting them to join us. Snowboarding we shall go!

We got up extra early to beat the crowds. We layered. We rented gear. We clipped in. We took lessons. We learned to turn. We learned to stop. We kept our knees bent. We learned to use our toe side and our heel side. And we definitely got reacquainted with our backside.

We were posers but we didn't care.  We were ridin fakie and goofy and didn't even know it. We faceplanted and ragdolled and held a few yard sales on the slope. We were stoked.

It was a phenomenally fun time! Reverse FFF works! For so long, my husband and I had resisted this activity with our kids. Selfishly, our expectations for our own good time were low but we were happily proved wrong.  There is something about a shared experience which binds you tightly together with your companions in fun or in peril. And we had a little of both with our snowboarding adventure.

No medals were won but we all were proud of our own accomplishments. We all were contentedly exhausted and satisfactorily sore. And we all were reminded how much fun it is to step...or slip and slide...outside of your comfort zone. Awesome dude!