Just wrapped up a great ski weekend with my wife and some family and friends. Among those present were my 12-year-old niece, Jane, and my friend's 8-year old son, Jordan. They are great kids and it was fun to watch them in action - they both can board like it's nobody's business, making me wonder whether I was anywhere close to as good as they are at those ages. Audrey and Grace were there too, although they can't ski quite yet. (Maybe next year for Audrey.)
The ideal progression of a ski day is to wake up early, ski all day, do the apres ski thing for a bit and then find a hot tub. It turns out the adults were pretty good at waking up late, skiing a half day and then going home to lounge on the couch. Jane and Jordan, on the other hand, followed the formula more closely (skipping apres ski, of course).
On Saturday evening it was time to hit the hot tub - for some anyway. While the adults planted themselves on the couch, a bit too sore to move, Jane and Jordan wanted to go for a dip. The snow was falling, a purple light glowed from under the water and pop music thumped from the speakers outside - what more could a couple young kids want?
I'll tell you. Gatorade. Apparently it's the champagne of non-alcoholic drinks for kids under 13.
Jane asked my wife for some and she brought a bottle for each of them - lemon-lime for Jane and grape for Jordan.
When Jordan got his we heard him exclaim, "Purple Gatorade! Wow, it doesn't get any better than this!" (Jane is a little older, so I imagine it was also fun and maybe a bit nerve-wracking for Jordan to be hanging out with an older girl.)
After the fact we found out that Jane was quite pleased with her Gatorade as well.
They spent nearly 45-minutes in the water with snow falling, music playing and most important, Gatorade flowing. Honestly, I wish that still did it for me. If I swapped beer for Gatorade it would be so much easier to wake up early to ski in the morning.
