Better than Christmas

Do you remember when you were a kid and the night before Christmas was the strangest, most anticipated, revved up night of the year? You were giddy with excitement about what was going to appear down by the Christmas tree as you skidded into the kitchen, sliding on the smooth surface of your socks and pajama bottoms. You figured it wouldn't be possible to ever fall asleep with so much excitement coursing through your veins...
That's me, right now. January 12th. A few full weeks after Christmas, and years beyond when it was quite that exciting for me on December 24th. Why?
I'm going skiing next week. All week.
Six straight days of going downhill... fast.
I'm fond of telling people whenever the topic of skiing comes up that there isn't anything I like to do more on this planet that downhill skiing. I suppose it started when my dad shoved me headlong down the Triple at Cannonsburg, en route to my first sprained ankle. Then when I was old enough, I got to ride along on the Friday night ski trips with the middle schoolers with dad as he chaperoned them during his teaching days.
To this day, and I'm not kidding, the smell of diesel bus exhaust makes me think of the EGR Middle School parking lot on winter Friday nights.
Then in high school it was just about all we did in the winter, especially in the years on ski team. Dave, Steve and I all had our stuff in a locker out at Cannonsburg, and we must have been out there 3-4 times each week.
I spent hours in the basement in my dad's work room, teaching myself (rather unsuccessfully) how to tune skis and adjust bindings on my own. Biggest lesson learned? Candle wax doesn't make good ski wax. You would think... but no. In college, one of the first times I needed to iron a shirt for an interview, I had to heat it up a while to burn the ski wax off before I could use it.
Skiing was my life. Still kinda is. I just don't get to do it that often.
But today I picked up my skis along with Ann's after a good (professional) tune up, and I'm SO ready to hit the road.
*- it should be noted here that eventually I became quite skilled at tuning skis and working on bindings, even held jobs at several ski shops in GR and East Lansing during college. It still pains me to pay somebody now to do the work for me, I just don't have the right equipment anymore, and can't find a suitable iron to wreck in the name of a nice wax job.
Friday our family hits the road to Breckenridge for a week, with 3 days of skiing planned there and 3 more at Copper, along with Vern and some others.
Jock and Karen, Sara and Braxton, JB, Greta, us and the kids will all be out there, and the girls will get their first real ski lessons. I can't wait to see how Clare and Addie take to skis... I just know Clare is going to rip it up after she gets the hang of it. Addie, perhaps a year or two down the road, will hopefully take off as well.
And BELIEVE me, nothing in the world will make me more proud.