Sports, part ii

Back to sports. Between my husband, my dad, and I we've managed to introduce our girls to two pretty expensive sports. They do love them though.

First snowboarding (and skiing). Sweet Pea LOVES all things snow and snowboarding. Bob took the girls to the mountain for the first time several years ago. Sweet Pea decided that she wanted to try snowboarding while Rosie Jane took to skiing. Rosie Jane will ski, if it's not too cold, the sun is out, and she's in the mood. She goes often enough that we rent skis for the season for her from the local ski shop. She was pretty reluctant to head to the mountain this year for some reason, then went one day and got a wicked sunburn. It was a beautiful day towards the end of the season, the sun was out, and it was warm....and I totally didn't think of sunscreen. After that day I made sure Sweet Pea had some in her gear bag.

Sweet Pea is the fanatic (said lovingly). She has loved snowboarding since the first time she went out. We rented her a snowboard for several seasons and bought her one last year for her birthday. She's finally stopped growing and has shown a continued interest so we knew it was a good investment. Last winter, we looked around for a snowboarding team and decided that the best one was the one at Massanutten Resort. Where we live, no ski area is close. The mountain she really wanted to go to has a ski team but no snowboard team. Massanutten has practice two nights a week plus both Saturday and Sunday. They only require attendance at one practice a week but we try to make it down to both weeknights plus Saturdays.

Last year was our year to figure out the snowboard team and also the competitions. She joined USASA, the snowboard association and competed in boarder cross. This year, we took another step and as she did well, she got invited to Nationals and competed there. She did well at Nationals and loved her extra day of snowboarding in Colorado. Looks like driving to snowboarding practice and competitions will be something that I'm doing for the next few years.

And then there's golf. This is Rosie Jane's passion. Many members of my family, including my dad and Bob, play golf. It's totally not something I'm interested in playing but she really does. A few years ago, I looked around for golf lessons and found that there's a First Tee Program here in our county. This is a great program because it combines teaching golf with life lessons. As the players move up through the program, the golf requirements get harder and the life lessons are deeper. Once they reach a certain level, and she's almost there, they can go to summer camp and get invited to tournaments.

Golf is one reason we thought about putting Rosie Jane into school for high school. Where we live if you homeschool, you can't be on the high school team. We've decided to keep her home, which means that it's going to be harder for her to play and get noticed by colleges. She's just going to have to work hard so she can go to the golf camps and tournaments sponsored by First Tee. One good thing is that there is plenty of money out there for female golf players for college. Now we just need to find her some (female) friends to play with so she'll keep her interest up.

So that's our sporting life, dance year round, snowboarding (and skiing) in the winter, golf in the spring/summer.