This was the year. The year we would get Stella on the chair lift and the year we would get Porter on skis. And what do you know, but we did it! Or, they did it. Er, um, we facilitated it? Whatever. Stella slayed the chair-lift (with the one minor hiccup of nearly taking out my mom’s knee on one of her earlier dismounts), and Porter skied. Let me say that again: Porter. Skied. Okay, to be totally honest, he spent about 10 minutes in his lesson until he grew too impatient to wait, and instead made Steve haul him to the top of the bunny hill. Steve, who was not wearing skis. You see, Porter had no interest in the banal details of safety and recovery – he just wanted to ski, Ski, SKI!!! And so up he went, armed with a lot of enthusiasm and little else. He made it up and down the hill a couple of times – only dragging Steve over once. And at the end of it all he called it a success, and so therefore WE called it a success. Done annnnd done!

The rest was all just gravy…