Day 1154 – Grayson’s Journey

Dear family and friends

OK – I’ll try to get back to the blog. This week has been crazy with both Regina and I working very late each night. Friday was an early evening as we both quit work a little after 6:00. Practically a half day!

Let me start by saying that our Mammoth vacation was a blast – for all of us. Here is a little review of the second half of the week!

On New Year’s Day we slept in until 8:00. It was a leisurely morning compared to most. Generally on these trips we (the skiers) are up at around 6:30 and out as soon as we can. This day we relaxed in our pajamas and sipped our coffee by the fire and watched the Rose Parade. Later in the morning we got Grayson ready to go and headed up to the main lodge for his lesson at Disabled Sports Easter Sierra (DSES). After the lifts closed we headed back to the condo to get ready for dinner at our favorite restaurant for Regina’s last night with us. The five of us had a wonderful meal and a wonderful time together.

The next day Austin and I were up and out as fast as we could to catch our last opportunity to ski some more challenging terrain together. We got in about two hard hours of skiing before heading back to the condo to get Grayson ready for his last half day of lessons. After the lesson, we beat feet back to the condo to pick-up Regina and take her off to the airport for her flight home. I came back to the condo and Austin, Xixi and I chopped and cut the fixin’s for my Dutch Oven Beef Stew. Here is a picture – some assembly required. (The wine is for the chef!)

The balance of the week we were without adult supervision, but we managed to stay out of too much trouble. On Thursday we started Grayson on full day lessons. My intent was to take the first few days of our trip to build up his strength and become adjusted to the mountain again before going all day. Thursday, Friday and Saturday he skied from 9:30 to noon and 1:00 to 3:30. To get him there by 9:30, Grayson had to get up at 7:00. It takes about 2 hours to get him up, fed, showered, and dressed in many layers before we can get out the door. Interestingly enough, it is the ski socks that I find most difficult to get on him. Putting knee socks on another adult is a challenge that I have yet to master, but I manage to get it done – unless I can talk Austin into doing it for me! Austin and Xixi were great help every day and helped make it a great vacation for me by shouldering some of the load.

As my father used to say, Friday night was “musgo” night. That is when you look in the refrigerator and say, “This mus go, that mus go…” because there was no way that we could take it all home. We had quite a combination of dishes and managed to polish off most of the leftovers. Saturday night we celebrated by going out to dinner before starting to pack up. We finished packing and loading the car on Sunday, then drove to the Main Lodge for one last afternoon of skiing before heading home. The skiing was great fun and it was in a snowstorm – more snow on the ground for our next trip!

Just for fun, here are a few pictures of Grayson – this one in his favorite evening position watching a movie, this one just before his first run of the season with his DSES instructor on the 29^th of December and finally an early run down Sesame Street on that first day in a snowstorm.

Over the course of the week, Grayson improved tremendously. While he had moments that you would expect for someone so cognitively challenged, he also had flashes of brilliance. Here is a clip of him on the day before we came home, on a run down Solitude back to Chair 10. I was amazed! He really has a knack and an aptitude for this – and the good news is that the chair lift does the hard work for him!

We are still basking in the glow of the trip in spite of returning to a madhouse at both of our places of employment. It was a great vacation!

Pax!

Brant