This past weekend, we finished our last homeschool ski lesson. My kids had a blast and are a bit sad that the ski season is over for us for this year. We are already looking forward to next year.

Even though each week we drive the same route to the same resort for the same lessons, each week has been a completely different adventure.

For the third lesson, we were treated to honest-to-goodness real snow! All the schools were closed that day in Virginia and it seemed to us that most families packed up their kids and headed to the resort! We have never seen the parking lot so packed.

I tried to catch some photos of the snow falling but that turns out to be above my photography skills at the moment. So, the best I have for you is a close-up of some snow that fell on my car. Real snow falls in spiky snowflake formations. The fake stuff is much smaller and finer, like sand.

After the previous week’s lesson with the snow guns, we bought some goggles (pink of course!) to add to the girls’ skiing attire.

The only catch with the natural snow is that the temperature outside was REALLY cold. 19 degrees!

Even though the lessons were only an hour and a half, my girls and their teachers couldn’t even make it that long. My 4 year old made it 55 minutes and my 7 year old’s class cut their lesson 10 minutes short to wait in the lodge.

My snow bear found the cold hard to take too.

We spent some time in the lodge too. The lodge, turned out to be another point of difference between Virginia and Utah skiing. The lodge in Virginia serves alcohol and in the evenings has rock bands and a DJ playing until 1 a.m.! During the day, the bar is open but the lounge area is pretty quiet with families stopping in for lunch and snacks at the cafeteria nearby.

On our last ski lesson, the snow guns were back on. After all the real snow, the snow base at the resort was getting up to decent levels, the highest of our visits. When the snow guns are on, it is loud, cold and hard to see.

For the final lesson, I decided to experiment with the latest safety trend . . . helmets.

A recent article on The New York Times Well blog indicates that everyone, and kids especially, should ski or snowboard with a helmet on. Helmet rental was an optional and additional expense from the ski rental so we did not rent helmets for the first three lessons. Also, I learned to ski without a helmet and didn’t really see the need for them. I am a pretty cautious skier and my girls aren’t aggressive my nature either.

I asked one of the ski instructors about helmets and she said that the resort takes no official position on helmets. The only difficulties with helmets, she indicated, were that for small children, it has quite an impact on your balance to put a helmet on. So, for little kids, she indicated that if you plan to wear a helmet in the long-term, you should learn from the first lesson with a helmet on. She also said that helmets make it harder to hear, which I can see would be frustrating when you are a teacher trying to give instructions or make sure your out of control child hears when you yell “SLOW DOWN!”

My girls were not big fans of the helmets. They were heavy and it was hard to fit our hats underneath to keep them warm. For my 4-year old, the instructor commented that the helmet was affecting her balance a bit. For next year, we may research options for super-lightweight ski helmets.

Overall, my girls made tremendous progress and it was exciting to see their confidence soar as they zoomed down the bunny slope.

Anyone else skiing out there? What is your experience skiing or snowboarding with helmets? Please share in the comments.