http://www.melissafrank.com/ Travel stories and other writing from the journey of life. en Serendipity 1.1 - http://www.s9y.org/ Tue, 27 Feb 2007 06:14:33 GMT http://www.melissafrank.com/templates/default/img/s9y_banner_small.png http://www.melissafrank.com/ 100 21 http://www.melissafrank.com/archives/3-An-End-to-the-Outdoors-For-All-Season.html Snow http://www.melissafrank.com/archives/3-An-End-to-the-Outdoors-For-All-Season.html#comments http://www.melissafrank.com/wfwcomment.php?cid=3 0 http://www.melissafrank.com/rss.php?version=2.0&type=comments&cid=3 nospam@example.com (Melissa Frank) Saturday night, 2/24/06 was the end to my 6 week session of volunteering to teach sit skiing with Outdoors For All.  I am both saddened and relieved by the end of the season.  For some reason, it's been a really tough year to drag myself up to the mountain every Saturday night this year.  What gets me out the door each week is thinking about the people I work with when I get up there and realizing that while this is a significant time committment, I am so blessed to have had my health for the first 33 years of my life.  It is truly a gift that I have the option to spend my time this way on Saturday nights.  Not only that, but for our participants, Saturday night marked the end of ski season for most of them because they are dependent on the amazing work of <a title="Outdoors for All" href="http://www.outdoorsforall.org" target="_blank">Outdoors For All</a> for the equipment and volunteers necessary for the them to ski. For me, it was the end of my volunteering but not quite the end of my season on the snow.  A few highlights from this season of instruction include: (1) spending much of my time working with a 20 year veteran of ski instruction and learning a ton from his experience in addition to a few laughs, (2) watching the progress of a student over 3 weeks who initially fell at every turn and we got at least half way down before the he fell on the last run of our last night and (3) the love, joy and support of an entire family that came out with a student who was supposed to be a 1 timer who ended up joining us for 3 times, even after he did a pirouette in the ski getting him off the lift the first time!  He was non verbal but you could see in his eyes that he loved being out there with us and his family was so amazing and supportive and fun (they would ski with us and race us down) that it made me smile and reminded me why I started working with this program initially and why I come back year to year.  So here's to another great season! Mon, 26 Feb 2007 22:57:58 -0700 http://www.melissafrank.com/archives/3-guid.html