Yesterday I took Đạo, Đán, and Xuân to Roundtop despite the warm weather (50F). To my surprise, the slopes weren’t so bad. They were slushing but skiable. Even though I had been to Roundtop several times, I didn’t realize that it also has separate lifts to black and double black slopes.

I took Xuân and Hân (my nephew) to both slopes. They did fine on the black, but struggled to get through some moguls on the double black. I advised them that if they fall, just slide down. Hân loved the idea. He told me, “Chú Doanh, you are the best. You invented a new technique. If you can’t ski down, slide down on your butt.” He and Xuân enjoyed sliding down on their butts.

We skied from 8:30 am to 2:30 pm and went over to my brother-in-law’s house for dinner. I had a few beers so they asked us to stay. I am glad we’re staying because I didn’t sleep well the night before. In addition, I was exhausted from skiing. Around 7 pm, I started to doze off.

As I am writing this post at 5 am on Sunday, the snow is falling outside and temperature has dropped to the 30s. We will be heading back to Roundtop again in the morning for more skiing.

After spending half a day at the Liberty Mountain Resort on Saturday, we went to our friend’s house to celebrate Vietnamese New Year in Maryland. We didn’t go home until midnight and the kids were exhausted. On Sunday, I let them sleep in and I was tired myself. When they woke up around 9:30 am, I asked if anyone wanted to go skiing. Đạo, Đán, and Xuân wanted to come.

We arrived at Liberty around noon and met up with my brother-in-law and his son. To my surprise, it was not too crowded. I took my kids and my nephew to the blue and black slopes. Another surprise was that all the slopes had moguls. I was worried that Xuân and Hân (my nephew) couldn’t make it, but they did just fine on the blue slopes. Đạo, Đán, and I went down the double blacks and met up with Xuân and Hân at the bottom where blacks and blues merged. Even with moguls, I managed to navigate my way down the double blacks with no problem. We were done around 4:30 pm.

We love skiing and we’ll miss it when the season comes to an end; therefore, we try to go as much as we can. The Epic pass and having our own equipment saved us time and money. We’ll definitely do it again next year.

Yesterday I did not plan to go skiing because of the heavy rain and warm weather the day before. The weather, however, dropped the night before and the resort was able to make snow. Đạo wanted to go so we went.

Liberty Resort turned out beautiful. The terrains were good. Because we came early in the morning, the lift lines were short. Đạo, Đán, and I hit the blue and double black slopes. I slipped on a double black once, but my skis didn’t pop off. I lifted up my legs above the ground and let myself slide all the way down. To prevent myself from slipping to the point where I faced the mountain and my skis started to go backward, I positioned my body in front of my downhill ski and put some weight on it as well. That seemed to work.

We did some mogul runs, but I only chose the less bumpy paths. On the green slopes I tried carving, but fell and hit my ski when I leaned. I need to start with one leg first.

We skied from 8:30 am to 12:30 pm. It was not crowded and the slopes were well groomed. As we headed up, the rental line was long. We avoided the crowd and four hours were plenty.

Hai hôm trước đi bác sĩ khám định kỳ. Không biết lấy hẹn làm sao mà đúng vào mùng một Tết. Thôi kệ đi luôn. Quả lại tôi cũng không tin dị đoan gì cả. Tôi nghĩ dạo này chơi thể thao đều đặn nên sức khỏe sẽ tốt. Cân giảm được vài pounds. Blood pressure cũng trung bình.

Hôm qua nhận được kết quả thử máu. Cholesterol và glucose đều tăng. Bác sĩ khuyên tập thể dục thêm nữa để giảm cân nhưng không đề cập đến vấn đề ăn uống. Nhưng tôi nghĩ phải ăn uống cẩn thận hơn nhất là đồ ngọt. Bớt uống Gatorade và trà bubble. Bớt ăn đồ ngọt và đồ ăn nhiều dầu mỡ.

Còn được vớt vát là chất uric acid giảm xuống mà không cần phải uống thuốc. Tôi vẫn uống wine đều đặn. Thỉnh thoảng vẫn uống bia và rượu nặng. Không ăn thịt bò thường xuyên. Lâu lâu thèm thì ăn một tô phở bò.

Sức khỏe như thế coi như tạm ổn. Sẽ cố gắng thể thao nhiều hơn và kiềm chế cái miệng lại.

On Saturday, I took Đạo, Đán, and Xuân to Liberty Resort. We arrived around 8:30 am, 30 minutes after the lifts began to operate, and the weather was beautiful. We hit a few runs before the crowd was pouring in. Xuân went on blue terrains as well as a black terrain. Đạo, Đán, and I hit two double black terrains. On one of them, I skidded into an icy area. My turn was a bit deep and I started skiing backward. My skis popped off and I slid all the way down. There was no way I could walk back up to retrieve my skis. Fortunately, another skier saw my skis on his way down and picked them up for me. Skiers and snowboarders often helped out when other skiers popped off their skis.

Around noon, the lifts started to pack. We left around one in the afternoon. Around 3:30 pm, I went over to a Scout leader’s house to grab a drink to celebrate Vietnamese New Year. We drank beer and Scotch and ate plenty of food. By 9:30 pm, I was already buzzing and thinking that the combination would give me a hangover and I couldn’t go skiing the next morning.

I woke up at 6:00 am on Sunday and felt fine. I was just a bit tired from drinking. I woke Đạo and Đán up to join me, but only Đạo wanted to go. Just the two of us hit Whitetail. We arrived around 9:30 am, 30 minutes after the opening time, and the parking lot was already filled up. In addition, there were buses arriving. We hit the blue and black slopes then hit the double black twice. We did six runs and went back home. The lines were simply too long and I wanted Đạo to rest before school on Monday.

Whitetail is definitely not a place to ski on the weekends. It is just too damn crowded, especially the lift for the green slopes. The lift for the black and double black slopes was faster, which made sense because not too many people could ski or snowboard on these terrains.

It was a great weekend. I am trying to ski as much as I can before the season is over. I am getting a ton of workout, I think.

I worked on my ice skating’s salchow jump for weeks, but I couldn’t get it down. My balance was off and I couldn’t land to check out. I got frustrated and put it on hold to focus on skiing.

Today I went back, after taking a week off the rink, to work on the salchow jump again. I fell twice; therefore, I tried hopping instead of jumping. I focused on my hands-and-feet coordinations and made sure my technicality was correct. Then it started to click. I was able to land and check out without tipping over or falling.

Now that I got the basic concept down, I need to practice to do the actual jump. I am not quite there yet, but I am making progress. I can’t wait to do some more.

Learning on my own seems to be much slower than with an instructor, but I am not in any rush. I just need to do it at my own pace.

Since the kids had no school yesterday, we headed back to Liberty Mountain Resort. Because it was Monday, the lift lines weren’t too crowded. We arrived around 10:30 am and split up. Đạo and Đán went on their own. They hit the blue and black slopes. My wife worked on her turns at the bunny slope. I took Xuân and Vương on the green slopes. Vương enjoyed riding the lift he referred to as the magic seat. With the harness, I helped control his speed and his turns.

After we had lunch, I took Xuân and Vương on the bigger, longer green slope. Xuân went straight down the slope. Vương did the same thing, but I had to slow him down because he didn’t know how to brake yet. We did it for three runs before he got tired and wanted his mommy. I was surprised that he lasted for almost four hours.

As Xuân and Vương went to the warming room to rest with my wife, I hit the black slopes with Đạo and Đán. They took me to the double black diamond slopes. When I looked down, the steepness of the slopes appeared intimidating. There was no way I could make my way down without flipping. Then Đạo and Đán went down with ease. They gave me the confidence to give it a shot. I combined short turns, hockey stops, and a bit of carvings to navigate my way down. To my surprise, I did not fall at all on both double black diamond slopes.

I tried out the blue mogul terrain. I had a bit of trouble getting around the big moguls a bit. I need more practice on how to ski on top of the moguls.

I loved skiing with these two kids. Đán is fearless and Đạo is cautious. I am in between them.

Took our little family to Whitetail today. I was expecting the resort to be packed, but I didn’t expect it to be super packed. The lines to the lifts were long. I could only manage to get Vương on the magic carpet once. He was tired and sleepy so I had to hand him over to my wife.

Đạo, Đán, Xuân and I went on a blue slope. Xuân was a bit intimidated and a ski patrol taught him side-slipping down the steep hills. As I was waiting for him to go down, I saw two snowboarders crashing into each other. One of them had to be transported down on a stretcher.

I took Xuân to the green slope, but the lift line took 40 minutes. He zoomed down the slope and went in with his mom. I joined Đạo on the blue slopes. We did two runs. They were fantastic. We’re planning on going back on Monday since the kids will still be off from school. The lines won’t be too crowded then.

Today only my oldest son, Đạo, and I went skiing at Liberty Resort. My wife thought it was too cold, but the weather turned out perfect. The sunshine made the temperature felt warmer. Since today is still a weekday, the resort was not too crowded. We were able to get on the lifts quickly.

We skied down all the green and blue slopes. They were fun. We skied down the black slope twice. I could control my speed much better with short turns. I attempted to try the double black, but it looked too steep. I backed out.

I am still trying to learn carvings. They were trickier than I thought, but I’ll get them. I just need more practice. We skied for about four hours and were exhausted. We headed home early before the sun went down. We had a great time together. I rarely got to spend time alone with one of my kids; therefore, I treasured every moment. Đạo is just a wonderful kid, especially when his siblings weren’t around. He acted much more mature.

I wish Đán, Xuân, and Vương joined us, but we’ll go again tomorrow. I bet Saturday will be extremely crowded though. We’ll see.

My cousin, Duy, who was a snowboarding instructor, insisted that I should give snowboarding another shot. Yesterday, we went back to Roundtop to take some snowboarding lessons from him.

Đán had already mastered his snowboarding skills and he could do the black slope at Roundtop. Đạo, Xuân, and I were still new. Duy taught us to keep our knees bent and our body constant in a strong position. We just needed to turn our shoulders from left to right to turn. Unfortunately, it was more difficult and it sounded. I kept falling. Đạo and I didn’t make it too far before switching back to skiing. Xuân stuck to snowboarding and did quite well. He liked taking one-on-one lessons with Duy; therefore, I left them on the bunny slope and went on the black slope with Đán.

I loved the thrill of skiing down the black slopes. My parallel turns and hockey stops allowed me to navigate around the steep slopes and moguls. My next goal is to learn carvings. The kids will have a four-day weekend this week. I can’t wait to get back to skiing, which is my focus for now. I might get back to snowboarding one day, but not this season.