First, he is absolutely a fantastic dad. I have a very short temper (no, it's true), and the kids are very mom-centric. That leads to me losing it with them sometimes when they're in the "mommy mommy mommy" mood. When I do, Kelvin has this great ability to sweep in and take over. He somehow manages to get them calmed down, and keep me from going totally ape shit. Don't get me wrong...sometimes they drive him up the wall too, but I don't know that I quite have the handling ability that he does. I wish I did, but he's just a natural at it, where I'm not. And this week, there were a few times (fewer than I expected, thankfully) when his kid-wrangling ability was very much needed (especially on the airplane).
He also spent a LOT of time with me on the slopes, despite the fact that he is a far better skier than I am, which makes it hard for us to find common ski ground. We've only been skiing together one other time, and on that trip, for the most part, he would ski his stuff and I'd ski mine. On that trip, he rented a snowboard one day, and boarded with me while I skied, which was cool. But the rest of the time, he went off and skied the hard stuff while I stuck to the greens. I totally expected this, because it would be silly for him to spend all day on stuff that held no interest to him. But this year, I got a little bit better, and he totally took me under his wing. He spent every afternoon (and some full days) skiing with me. We did some greens and a lot of blues, and he really helped me ski down some stuff that was far more advanced than I would have ever considered alone. Because of his willingness to ski the easy stuff (and to ski it slowly), I got a lot better at skiing than I would have alone. And when we got to stuff that was too much for me (like Parson's Bowl), he was amazingly patient while I had my minor panic attack. It was a fantastic way to spend a week, and I am totally thankful to him for skipping out on the fun stuff so he could spend time with (and help) me.
The last thing that he did that is totally cool was he stuck up for me. I was skiing down Mary Jane somewhere, right after we skied Parson's Bowl, and I was feeling totally gun shy. Parson's Bowl basically kicked my ass (even though we just did a regular old blue run down it), and I was skiing really slowly and poorly. As I went around a corner, this dude came whizzing up and cut right in front of me. It threw me for a sec, but I didn't think anything of it. Well, apparently, I had turned when he didn't expect me to, and it had thrown him off too. He fell down and slid into the wall of a building we were passing. I didn't see any of this, but Kelvin was behind me and saw it all. The guy apparently jumped up and started to say something to me, but Kelvin stopped him and gave him an ear full for cutting me off. Apparently Kelvin totally shut him down, because he went off the other way. I think it's awesome that Kelvin stuck up for me. I mean, by all accounts, I was probably skiing stuff that I shouldn't have been on, and I was skiing it poorly, so people had reason to be annoyed with me. But Kelvin knew that I was trying, and knew that the guy should have been more aware instead of skiing past me way too fast without paying enough attention. In the end, he made sure that the guy didn't freak me out more than I already was by being an ass to me. I like that. A lot.
All in all, I had an amazing week, and I think Kelvin did too. On the last day we were there, we got a little bit of a dump, and Kelvin went out first thing to ski while I packed up the condo. It was no big deal, but I hope it made up for him spending so much of his week hanging out in the shallow end instead of playing with the big dogs.
So the next time I start to bitch about something Kelvin did, tell me to go read this post. Maybe it will make me remember all the reasons I should keep my damn mouth shut!
