We got a chance to have a little get away. So we packed up the car and headed to North Carolina for a little skiing before the season ended. I used to be an avid snowboarder but I haven’t been on a slope since our first kid was born more than 9 years ago.

We found a cute cabin to rent online. The cabin rental place told us we should probably bring tire chains so we found some online and took off for the mountains.  After a 9 hour road trip we finally arrived at our destination tired, hungry and ready to hit the slopes in the morning.

We arrived at Sugar Mountain in the morning and after gearing up we were ready to hit the slopes. Now my wife and I are decent snowboarders but our kids are still learning. Our 3 year old had an hour private lesson and decided the cold and snow were not for him so he spent the rest of the day in the slope side child care center.

Three of the other kids decided they were ready to hit the slopes without any refresher ski lessons (they went skiing last year so they felt they were nearly professional) and the last child decided he wanted to learn to snowboard for the first time and spent most of the day in snowboard school.

That meant Caroline and I were hitting the slopes with 3 of the kids. When you have 5 kids and you suddenly only have to watch 3 of them, you are feeling pretty good. But let me tell you, watching 3 kids on the ski slopes is no easy challenge. There were so many wipe outs. I was blown away by how many people stopped what they were doing to help our kids. From teens to senior citizens, people were being so kind to us.

I was blown away by how willing complete strangers were to help the kids up after they fell down or to help them put their boots back into their skis. Thank you strangers for making a great day even better.

It’s amazing what a little kindness can do.