On Friday morning, after it snowed all night at camp, I was pretty sure we were not going anywhere. Even as we loaded up the cars and knocked the deep deep powder off of them, I thought really…we are going to be sitting back by the fire in our cabins before long. Then we actually started down the mountain. Not 50 yards down the driveway, we stopped. We were all lined up behind a large van piled with teenagers and skis pulling a trailer loaded down with luggage. My husband was at the wheel of that precarious vehicle and I kept envisioning it going off the side of the mountain as we slipped in the snow in our rather small minivan.

Later in the day, after the hanging off the edge of the cliff was all over and my stomach had settled from its terrified state into the post-terror phase of irritably angry, I said to my beloved husband, I love it that you aren’t afraid to get down the mountain even when the situation looks grim. It’s great that you aren’t held back by fear. I just want you to appreciate my fear that your willingness to always push on can sometimes translate into foolishness.

We talked about fear this week. A huge advantage to being a member of the FC (as opposed to the LSD) was that we heard Frog and Toad stories every night, presented to us by our own dear friends, the dramatic and the dude. The night that Frog and Toad faced their fears, we named out loud the beasts that make us afraid. The dark, spiders, dying, even snails. Mine is heights. Though I have reached a lot of them with my crazy family, I still get this little flip flop in my stomach near a cliff or on a chair lift without a guard rail. Frog shared the verse with us in Joshua that reminds us that we need not fear anything on this earth. Our God is with us. Have courage.

aren't they cute?

One of the kids among us recited this verse each night. Still, though, I forget it. Sometimes life is hurling in a direction I am not sure that I want to go. I want everyone to stop so we can just think about it a little more. Consider the options. Maybe there is a way out of driving this van down this particular mountain right this minute.

After we braved the snowy roads, the lack of heat/defroster in my car and the grouch within me, I had a beautiful sunny afternoon of skiing at Copper Mountain. Mary Polly and Ben skied their first black diamond. Ben asked me to take his picture on a mogul. We road speedy chairlifts with maps on the guard rails. We wore ourselves out on the long runs. And when we were dead dog tired and it was time to make out way back to the vans, I was trudging through the village carrying my second load of skis when I saw this sign in a store window. It made me laugh.

It’s not necessarily that Taido faces fear better than me. Maybe it just has more to do with the pace he keeps. No time for thinking.

However, I’m pretty sure if it had been up to me to get that van down the mountain, we would still be at Frontier Ranch.