This is how a 3-year-old skis

Spiff gives him a push at the beginning, and then walks next to him while Gunner slides down the hill.

I like the part when Gunner says "Bye" to his daddy.

That's my kid! He dives in head first. Spiff said that as they pulled into the parking lot, Gunner said from the back seat, "Daddy, I want to go fast down that hill by myself."

I think that sums up their experience in a nutshell. Gunner was thrilled to be there, and he picked it up so fast! Spiff took him up the bunny hill ski lift before he realized that there was a useable bunny hill. Gunner told me later that the operator had to stop the lift just after they got on. One of his skis had fallen off his foot, and it was dangling from the toe-clip, which is a little device that connects the tips of the skis in order to keep them together.

Spiff quickly realized that it was difficult to manage a 3-year-old on skis while he was on his own skis. So they headed over to the "bunnier hill", which has a "magic carpet" to transport kids from the bottom to the top of the hill. Think of a long, uphill conveyor belt, which is way better than the rope tow I had to use as a kid. I could never hang onto that thing!

Gunner made Spiff ditch the toe-clip device. Apparently it was cramping his style. Spiff said that he handled the skis really well, and that he was skiing circles around some of the other little kids on the hill who were taking private lessons. He had an amazingly good attitude about it. He fell a lot, but he hopped right up. The equipment was big and heavy for him, but he tried his best. He wasn't intimidated at all. He was a complete natural. He laughed the whole time. It makes me wish we lived here permanently so that we could foster his enthusiasm for this sport.

He has a little lift ticket hanging on his coat now. And he has to tell everyone he sees that he went skiing "today" or "last more" or "last week." He really was the happiest little boy on earth.