We embarked on our first family ski trip on New Year’s Day this year. For the past year or so, Ryan and I have been discussing taking our kids skiing (actually, everybody snowboarded except for me) and we knew we wanted to keep it super low key and stay local.
The snow and mountain size were quite underwhelming (our dream is to take them out west), but we knew we needed to first take them on a test run (low budget, low expectations) to see if they even liked it!
On a last minute whim, we booked lift tickets, snowboard lessons for the kids, ski/snowboard rentals for all of us, and headed out the door on January 1 before the sun was up!
Ryan chose Roundtop Mountain Resort and we left the house at 6:30am to make the 2-hour drive to Lewisberry, Pennsylvania.
By 9am we were picking up our lift passes, trying on our equipment rentals, and out on the mountain just in time for the kids’ 10am private lesson.
We introduced our kids to their instructor, Joseph, waved goodbye and headed to the lift by ourselves.
Their lesson went until noon, so the last hour or so Ryan and I caught up with the kids at the top of the green runs and watched/videoed/cheered them on!
After their lesson, we went to the Main Lodge Food Court and grabbed some lunch.
After lunch, we headed back out for our first run as a family. It was so fun to watch our kids navigate getting on the ski lift by themselves! We started out with a green (the run they had been practicing on for their lesson) and all of us were cracking up at Josiah’s style of snowboarding…straight down, full speed. It was hilarious to see their personalities coming through their snowboarding technique/style. They were all appreciative of their lesson and it was a great way to enter the snowboarding world as a true beginner.
We tried one blue run as a family, but that proved to be frustrating for the boys (they fell a lot more), so we spent the next couple of hours on greens until we took a hot cocoa and coffee (and restroom) break at 2pm and let our legs rest a bit.
The kids asked to go back out for what we thought would be our final family run. Until we got to the bottom of the hill and they all talked us into another hour of snowboarding! The girls ended up going off on their own to stay on the blues, while Ryan and I stayed with the boys on the greens.
Ryan, Naiya and I officially called it quits at 3pm and went to the the lodge to wait for the other kids to be done. By 4pm, we wanted to get on the road and so I went out (in my sneakers by now) to find the kids and wrangle them and call it a day.
We returned our equipment and got changed into comfy clothes for the ride home. We were sore, tired and happy from the day’s adventure!
We stopped for dinner on our way out at Round the Clock Diner and the kids ordered breakfast for dinner and they all but licked their plates clean after a full day of snowboarding! It was a quiet drive home, except for a few times where I felt it necessary for our safety to lend driving tips to Ryan. It ended in a unanimous decision by all for Alexia and I to switch seats for the remainder of the trip, ha! #winwin
All in all, our whole family agreed that it was such a great experience and so very low maintenance now that the kids are older and can carry their own equipment. Hopefully this is the first of many ski/snowboard family trips!
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