Easily Excitable

As promised last week, here’s my favorite post of the year: the debrief and dissection of the 2026 family ski trip. Overall impressions before we get into the nitty gritty? 

I can’t say it enough, though you’re probably tired of reading it: family is incredible. 

We are blessed to be close with both our family and our in-laws. This goes across the whole family tree. 

This year, we returned to Whitefish, Montana, and we had an absolute ball.  

We ate delicious food. We played pool. We got in the hot tub. We listened and told stories, though arguably, none could top our cousins (Brianna and Jim’s) stories.

I’m still getting tickled over some of them. 

(Brianna and Jim came out with us this year, and Brianna and I got to ski together a good bit. Skiing with a buddy is a lot of fun, but I have to say that Brianna is afraid of nothing. 

No fear. Zero. Nada. As one who is afraid of all things skiing, I was taken aback, encouraged, and in awe by her fearlessness.)

In short? This annual trip is near-impossible to improve upon.

But now, more importantly and what you would much rather read, here is a rundown of the various falls and fun that took place across a near-week out West.  

Thoughts on Skiing? Glad you asked

Last year was my first time skiing. I enjoyed it a lot, but if you know me well, you know that my fear that my knee will go awry is strong. 

This is just on an ordinary day. After three knee dislocations, one has to be cautious. 

Enter in skiing- the act of putting death traps on one’s feet. It’s the total opposite of cautious. 

Bluntly put, I was not made for skiing. I’d like to chalk that up to common sense, but much of my life attests to the fact that I really don’t have much of that either. 

These feet are made for borderline-orthopedic shoes and ground that doesn’t shift and slip below me. My joints will attest. 

All the same, I’m not one who enjoys being left out of my own fearful accord. So I try to ski because, if nothing else, I’m a try-hard. 

Bear this in mind. 

Mine and Trey’s first mistake? 

Believing we could stay up to ring in the New Year. 

Trey and I began our hurrah on December 31st; we got there a couple days earlier than the rest of the family because we needed to come back a bit earlier. 

Before leaving for Whitefish, we talked a big game about how excited we were to finally stay up late for New Years. There was no work for either of us the following day! 

We got up around 3:00ish. It should be stated here that we both agreed how easy it is to get up when you know you’re headed for fun. If only work were that easy to wake up early for.

We landed in Whitefish around 2:00, and we explored, still high on the dream we’d be up until the wee hours of the morning.

We were yawning by 7:30, talking about an early night by 8:00, and calling it a night at 10:00pm. 

Us staying up to ring in the New Years? That’ll never happen. 

We kicked off our trip with a pipe dream. 

That pipe dream continued with the idea that I’d actually be able to ski. 

The first day, Trey and I went skiing, just the two of us: 

We began with low-level things: Bunny Slopes, greens- you know, the easy, build-up-your-confidence skiing. I did well! It was like riding a bike really! I knew how to do this!

And then, we went up the mountain. That was where and when it got dicey. 

By the end of the first run, I was shaking like a leaf. We were on a place called Hope Slope, but for me, truthfully, it should have been called “Hopeless Slope.”

By the end of the day? I was a broken woman. 

On my last fall, I was slamming my fists into the ground and saying things that would disappoint my grandmothers. 

At that time, Good Samaritans would swing by, help me up, and pick up my poles. As soon as they got me up, they would ski off, and I would *predictably* fall down yet again. 

After 3 times of this, as Trey was *finally* about to run out of patience, I got back up, and I like to think this is solely because God was ALSO tired of seeing me on the ground. 

Of Kids and Leashes

Here’s something to note about children on skis: 

They have no fear.

There’s nothing more humbling than six years olds whizzing by you lie destitute on the mountain, praying for God’s mercy. 

Two of Walker and Hanna’s went to ski school twice and then skied with Hanna and Walker the other days. 

When the kids didn’t have ski school, Walker dreamed up a new evil: putting the twins on leashes. Legitimately. Those dog leashes where you press the button and it extends? 

That’s what these look like. 

The kids were attached, so we all decided to go down a run. 

We were all on the ski lift. Walker had Bea, and Hanna had Joe Joe. 

As the latter pair were getting off the lift (all from Hanna’s perspective) something took place, and Hanna had to release the leash or run over the child. 

Thus, Joe Joe broke off the leash, and there in that moment, he lived the best 15 seconds of his life. 

This ended up being just fine. Joe Joe and Hanna made it down, even with the initial cut cords. 

Walker and Bea? That’s a different story. 

Watching them was not unlike seeing a puppet master, but from my understanding, skiing with a child, namely one who doesn’t particularly care to be there, is much more difficult than puppetry. 

Walker had to push her forward, then ski to her, then do this process again. The slope seems short, until you’re Walker Meadows at this moment. 

Bea proceeded to fall multiple times. She looked about as able to get up as I was, which is to say, not at all. 

When they finally got down, Bea confirmed this was the most terrifying event of her life. 

At the bottom of the mountain, she sat by the fire with hot chocolate and a rice krispie treat, and she said, “This is the best part.” 

She gets it. 

Daddy falls on the Bunny Slopes 

At one point, Daddy, Zayden, and I found ourselves on a ski lift. 

Last year, when we did this, we got on the lift with the unluckiest woman in Whitefish. This was because, when disembarking, Zayden cut Daddy and me off. We fell and, as a result, slammed that poor lady into a pole. 

It was a disaster. 

We met up with Hanna and the twins in ski school, which tells you everything you need to know about how difficult this run was. It bleeds into the bunny slope, so I made my way down. 

Hanna was already at the bottom, so we chatted for a bit. After a while, she said, “Where’s Poppy?” 

That was a valid question. I wasn’t sure either. 

Lo and behold, about 30 yards away, I saw a figure dressed in black, flat on his back. I know you’re on the edge of your seat here, so I can confirm it WAS, in fact, my father. 

He’d fallen so hard on the bunny slope that his skis popped off, and his helmet was awry. 

We didn’t laugh a bit, and we didn’t retell the story at all. 

I didn’t feel so bad about my own falls after that. 

Momma and Trey Wrestle down the Mountain

This was the award winning fall, and I’m blessed by God Himself to say that I was the one who got to see it in all of its glory. 

I got to see Trey fall. Finally. More than anything I’m glad he’s okay, and it’s worth mentioning that he only fell because of my mother. 

We were trying to ski into the resort. This isn’t hard, really, but there is a steep area that can get a little icy.

Because it led into the lodge, Momma was encouraged (threatened is too steep of a word…cajoled, maybe?) to go down this run, so she wouldn’t have to be dropped off by car. 

She didn’t feel confident skiing this with anyone other than the best skier of the bunch: Trey. 

The way she elected to go down the hill? 

By Trey pulling her with one of his ski poles. 

Well, they got to going, inch by inch, and they did okay. But then it got steeper, and Momma started hollering: 

“Trey…TREY…TREYYYYY!”

She started to get a little wobbly, so she did the thing she thought best: she got closer to Trey. However, this became problematic when her skis crossed up. And even more of an issue when her skis crossed up with Trey’s. 

They started cutting hard to the left as a result, and while they had a semi-wide berth initially, they began to hurtle to the side of the runway. 

At that time, Trey had a tough decision to make, and this difficulty wasn’t just around the situation in which he found himself (crossed up in another’s skis). 

This was also largely because of the person he was responsible for in this moment- the one whose safety he would have to answer over. 

That person? His mother in law.

To the left, down a slope, there was a small creek. They were headed straight for said creek. 

So in this moment, Trey had to make a decision: he could stop the momentum, or they could go swimming. 

He chose the latter. It was the right choice. 

There in that moment, I watched Trey, still attached to my mother with the pole, go flying to the ground. Momma did along with him. She fell back on her head. 

It looked like a wrestling move, wherein one person grabs another’s arm, and wallops her to the ground. 

Trey thought he’d broken my Momma, but then he saw her laughing, so all was well.

I’ve never been so tickled in my life. 

Zayden Fears my Fall

Here is the tale of my worst fall of the week. 

The mountain, because of the rain and the constant traffic, had gotten icy and slick.

I somehow ended up taking a fall face-first down the mountain. I went slightly askew, and flipped, and flipped, and flipped. With every roll, all I could think was, “My knee will never survive this.” 

Alas! It did! 

I fell so hard, though, it knocked my helmet off a bit. My poles were scattered hither and yon down the slope. 

And as far as my crew? There was no one in sight.

Well… I mean… There was one. And he was perhaps the most unlikely to help. 

Zayden came to my rescue. As one whose love language is picking at me (and I at him), I didn’t think he would be of much service. 

I could tell it looked bad when he skied up, eyes wide, only wondering if I was okay. 

He then did the kind thing of picking up my poles and trying to get me up. Being that he’s just over five feet, this was quite the task for the both of us. 

Another humbling moment. 

By the next day, because he couldn’t look too soft, Zayden’s story was that he only stopped because he thought “a stranger had fallen.” 

What a good Samaritan. 

To that I said, “You saw a gorgeous woman tumbling down the mountain and you just had to go help. Good for you, always looking to talk to pretty girls.”

This embarrassed him all the more, but it allowed him to save face, rather than run the risk of actually looking like he cared about his aunt. 

A grand time was had by all. 

I’d be lying to you if I said I didn’t want to go again this season, just so I can remember what I learned on this trip. 

That most likely will not happen, so next year will be another year of funny stories- of disaster flirted with, yet hopefully avoided. 

All’s well that ends well, but again, I cannot reiterate enough: 

I didn’t thrive, but I did survive, and I’ll be grateful for that.