In the morning, I had a group lesson with 10 students. They were adults and teenagers. They picked up surprising fast. I ended the lesson with S turns.

In the afternoon, I had my first private lesson with a ten-year-old boy. I tried to teach him as much as I could to make his dad’s payment worthwhile. It was hard for him to understand the techniques I explained to him. Nevertheless the lesson went fine.

I was done after 3:00 pm, but the snow was falling fast. I didn’t want to drive home in the snowstorm. I stayed and snowboarded in the back side. The conditions were great. I hit the double-black-diamond slope twice. I even went on the mogul trail, which I had not done on snowboard before.

It was a fantastic day.

We left around 8:30 am in the morning. We arrived at Whitetail around 10:00 am. I took three runs on the blue trails with Xuân (on snowboard) and Vương (on ski). Of course, I was snowboarding.

I checked into the ski school and asked my supervisor about KMC (Kids Mountain Camp) and he sent me over to the camp. I taught an eight-year-old Chinese girl and a ten-year-old Vietnamese girl. They did alright.

After that a friend came and asked me to show him some pointers. I gave him a quick lesson. He wanted to stop after I showed him how to stop on heel and toe edges.

I went up back to the lift to see if I could find my wife and kids. I couldn’t find them. I took the long green trail and carved. My carving is getting much better. I can pick up more speed. I felt great.

We left around 7:0 pm and decided to stop by Ugly Dumpling Express for dinner. The food was not bad.

I am now exhausted. I need to go to sleep so I can get up early tomorrow to drive back to Whitetail to teach.

Despite getting up early and driving to Whitetail on time, I missed the morning ski clinic. I was a minute late, but I forgot my pass. The lifties didn’t let me on even though I was wearing my uniform.

For the morning lineup, I was assigned to teach a beginner lesson. A nine-year-old girl was waiting with her mom. I asked her if she needed to use the bathroom before we got started. I needed to use the bathroom myself. When I came back, she was with about 7 or 8 more students. I also saw another instructor take over my spot. I was cool about it. I could just go riding.

The group headed out to the learning center. As I was about to punch out my time, 2 girls came out from the rental. I was asked once again to take on. Then the dads told me that 2 more will be joining the group. Then 4 more came out. Then 5 more came out. Suddenly I had 16 students altogether with ages ranging from 9 to adult.

I asked another instructor to help me out, but he had to check in with the supervisor. He took away the 5 adults from me. I still had 2 moms who wanted to stay with their kids. I had 11 students left and we were about 15 minutes behind schedule. Fortunately, I had another shadowing instructor helping me out.

The lesson went better than I had expected. We made it through the entire curriculum. Students were able to do some J turns and began to do S turns.

In the afternoon, I didn’t have any lessons so I went riding solo. The crowd was not as bad as yesterday, but it was still busy. I went home around 2:30 pm.
Despite getting up early and driving to Whitetail on time, I missed the morning ski clinic. I was a minute late, but I forgot my pass. The lifties didn’t let me on even though I was wearing my uniform.

For the morning lineup, I was assigned to teach a beginner lesson. A nine-year-old girl was waiting with her mom. I asked her if she needed to use the bathroom before we got started. I needed to use the bathroom myself. When I came back, she was with about 7 or 8 more students. I also saw another instructor take over my spot. I was cool about it. I could just go riding.

The group headed out to the learning center. As I was about to punch out my time, 2 girls came out from the rental. I was asked once again to take on. Then the dads told me that 2 more will be joining the group. Then 4 more came out. Then 5 more came out. Suddenly I had 16 students altogether with ages ranging from 9 to adult.

I asked another instructor to help me out, but he had to check in with the supervisor. He took away the 5 adults from me. I still had 2 moms who wanted to stay with their kids. I had 11 students left and we were about 15 minutes behind schedule. Fortunately, I had another shadowing instructor helping me out.

The lesson went better than I had expected. We made it through the entire curriculum. Students were able to do some J turns and began to do S turns.

In the afternoon, I didn’t have any lessons so I went riding solo. The crowd was not as bad as yesterday, but it was still busy. I went home around 2:30 pm.

The entire family went to Whitetail today. The crowd was chaos. I bought Đạo a new pair of Atomic Maverick 86 C Skis ​+ M 10 GW Ski Bindings 2025. With the employee discount, I paid $415, which was 40% off original price. He loved the skis.

I checked in at 12:45 pm and one of the lead instructor assigned me to Kid Mountain Camp (KMC). I taught a class for the first time. Luckily, I only had two students: a 9 and a 10 years old brother and sister. They did well for their first time learning. Of course they fell, but they were able to do J-turns at the end.

Today, Xuân began the Whitetrailers program for snowboarding. He was placed in level 2. I made the request to bump him up to 4. They ended up placing him in level 5. He is snowboarding really well.

After my class and his program, we made two runs together. It was still crowded and starting to get cold. We decided to go home. The kids requested Sushi Bomb. We ate until 9 pm and got home around 10:45 pm.

I made $60 today before tax and spent $700 on equipment and food. My wife was right when she said, “You spent more than you worked.”

The conditions at Liberty was too good yesterday, I had to come back this morning. The kids still had the day off, but they didn’t want to go again. I went solo.

I arrived at Liberty around 9:30 am. I was surprised that the parking lot was filling out. It turned out that government workers were taking the day off to honor Jimmy Carter. Rest in peace, President Carter.

I started out skiing. I went straight to the backside and warmed up on the blue trail. Then I hit the double black and blue trails. I could carve on the blue terrains, but not the double-black terrains.

At noon time, I had lunch and switched over to snowboarding. I did the double-black terrains as well, but couldn’t carve much on the blue terrains. Around 2 pm, I called it the day.

I will take a break tomorrow to get my car check out. I’ll be back to work at Whitetail on Saturday and Sunday. Next Monday, I’ll be back to my regular job. Five weeks had gone by so quick.

I was not planning on skiing or snowboarding today, but the kids were still staying home because of the snow. I didn’t think the kids would join me, but they all did. I was super stoked about it.

As they are growing older, they have their own interests. They would rather spend time on their digital devices than skiing and snowboarding. Trying to get them together isn’t easy these days. I didn’t want to waste the opportunity.

We hadn’t been to Liberty this season; therefore, we headed there. The conditions were great. The double-black-diamond terrains were all opened. Đạo, Đán, and Xuân head to the backside for the blue and black terrains. I chilled with Vương on the green trails. We did two runs and went back to the lodge to meet up the crew for lunch.

After lunch, Xuân switched to snowboarding to join us. I took Vương to the blue terrains and he did fine. I am glad that Vương can now join us in the back side. I didn’t practice carving on my snowboard much. It was a fun day. I want to get back to Liberty tomorrow to practice my carvings.

This morning, I was in bed binging season two of Squid Game and a friend called asking me to go to Whitetail. I complied. I wanted my kids to go, but Xuân and Vương were too tired from sledding yesterday. Of course, Đán wanted to stay home to play video games. He wondered why I didn’t get him anything related to computer and video games. Đạo didn’t want to go at first because Đán was not coming, but he decided to join me, which made me really happy.

A friend asked me to teach his son snowboarding. I complied. His son is eight years old and the kid is on the heavy size. I knew it would be a challenge to teach him how to snowboard, but I didn’t expect a different kind of challenge. He refused to learn at the bottom of the hill. He didn’t want to learn to skate. He told me he could already turn and stop. He wanted to go to the top of the hill to snowboard down. The learning area was somewhat flat so agree to go to the top. I helped him strap in both feet so he could show me what he could do. He fell as soon as he stood up on the board. After three falls, he gave up. I asked him to go back to the bottom so we could start fresh, but he refused. His dad told me, “You see why I couldn’t teach him anything.”

I ended up working my own carvings on my snowboard. I am making progressions. Seeing the clean line I left behind when I carved wass just satisfying. I just needed to stop trying to touch the snow and focused on balancing my posture. I want to spend more time on the trail to practice my carving.

I woke up this morning with over 8 inches of natural snow on the ground. I didn’t have to go anywhere to ride. After shoveling our cars, driveway, and walkway, we headed over to George Mason. I took out my snowboard and rode right on the streets.

The hills at Mason were about blue to easy black terrains. The kids rode on the sledge. I rode on my snowboard over the powdery snow. We rode to the bottom of the hill and walked back up. It was quite an exercise. We had fun.

I don’t get to ride powder much; therefore, it was a wonderful experience. The kids won’t have school tomorrow. We’ll just snowed in and relax.

I headed to Whitetail early so I could catch the eight-o’clock skiing clinic. skiing on freshly groomed snow felt great. The ski instructor was very nice, but he made us ski in a wedge, which I hadn’t done in years. It felt awkward.

At 9:30 am, I stood in line with all snowboard instructors to teach. Four of us didn’t get assigned to teach. The other three instructors were a bit bummed out, but I was not. No teaching meant I could go riding. I worked on my carving on the green terrain. My wife texted me to let me know that little Vương wanted to go skiing. I was happy about that.

At 12:45 pm, I stood in line once again and I still didn’t get assigned to teach, in which I was hoping so that I could go ride with my family. The lead instructor felt bad for me that I had no lessons all day, which meant I didn’t get paid. He asked me to take a clinic on body movement analysis, which I already did. I thanked him, but I preferred to leave.

I spent the rest of the afternoon with Vương, Xuân, and my wife. Ðạo went to the backside. Somehow, my wife let Đán stayed home with grandma to spent his whole day on his PC. That kid needs to get out of the house.

I went back to work today at Whitetail. In the morning, I did my fourth shadow with a fellow instructor. One of his students caught the edge and fell flat on his belly. It took the wind out of him. Learning to snowboard can be miserable.

In the afternoon, I retook the jacket test with the lead instructor for snowboarding. He gave me tips along the way. I brought up catch-the-edge issue and recounted what I witnessed during my shadow. He understood. I shared with him the technique I learned to not catch the edge anymore. He agreed, but told me to make it simple. I was glad about that. I passed the test and now I can teach first-time learners on my own.

At the end of the day, I approached the instructor who encouraged me to become an instructor. She didn’t recognize me, but I soon as I recount the story and how I become an instructor, she gave me a hug. Such a sweet lady.

It has been a long day. I couldn’t sleep much the night before. I am exhausted after a long day at work and four snowboarding runs afterward. I am going to bed early today. Tomorrow I will get up early and do it again.