Snowboarding As a Family | John & Tiffany

Tiffany: [00:00:00] Welcome back Stoke Fam it’s Tiffany and John. And today’s episode is a conversation with just us all about snowboarding with kids. We’re going to chat about how we started snowboarding with our kids, what you need to know if you’re just getting started and what you really need to have. 

John: [00:00:16] Truth. 

Tiffany: [00:00:17] Yeah. So we first started snowboarding. Well, I first started snowboarding because of this guy over here. 

John: [00:00:25] I’m obsessed. It’s okay. 

Tiffany: [00:00:28] Yeah obsessed is a good word. 

John: [00:00:30] It’s just kind of the way it is. 

Tiffany: [00:00:31] So you didn’t start snowboarding because of me. 

John: [00:00:34] No, I skied for quite a while. From like second grade until probably around seventh grade, somewhere in there where you get like the teenage transition and I was skateboarding a lot and, or attempting to at our small country home. And I was interested in the skateboard style and the activity and was doing a lot of that stuff, which naturally led over into snowboarding. So that was a no-brainer for me. And once I started snowboarding, I was never going to look back. Once you start to link turns, it is the greatest feeling ever. And… 

Tiffany: [00:01:10] The rest is history. 

John: [00:01:11] The rest is history. There’s no way I was getting out of it. I was instantly hooked. 

Tiffany: [00:01:16] And so then when we met, I had attempted skiing. We’ll just say that yard sales were very common. 

John: [00:01:24] Everybody loves a good yard sale. Yeah, all your gear goes exploding everywhere. I’ ll mansplain for everybody at home and your gear goes all over the mountain.

Tiffany: [00:01:35] Literally see, this is what happens though. When you try to learn to ski. On the ice or on yeah, the ice coast because I would hit a patch of ice and instantly go down because edge control was not a thing that I knew at that point. And it was just face first on the ice skidding down a mountain.

And I was like, I am done. I’m never doing this. I’m over it. 

John: [00:01:54] I’ll never forget. My first time of experiencing ice coast, ice coast kills. It was a writing, a Wolf, Laurel. And I saw this beautiful bank and I thought, oh, I’m going to carve up this thing. It is absolutely gorgeous untouched. And I just slid in skittered out and it hurts so bad.

And I was just like, I’m going to take my snowboard and throw it because I’m going home.

Tiffany: [00:02:16] This was really I think the first and only day. That we have ever bought tickets and it was less than two hours and we were like, we’re done. 

John: [00:02:25] We were so spoiled and snooty. And just like, cause we’d always take trips to come back here.

Tiffany: [00:02:32] But as soon as we hit all the ice, we were like, am I’m over it, I’m done. It was just a bad day all around. But yeah, so that was my experience with skiing. So then this guy over here is like, Hey, you want to learn to snowboard? I love it. And I’m like , uh, no, not so much, 

John: [00:02:45] But I didn’t appreciate at the time how anti cold. You were. 

Tiffany: [00:02:50] No you didn’t. 

John: [00:02:51] And what your situation or your experience skiing had been in these things? Because for me, going to the mountains, going to the lifts and the resort was like Christmas. Every time I would pull up, honestly like the whole drive, I was excited the entire drive to the mountain and that’s all I wanted to share with you is this amazing place. It’s my favorite thing ever. I didn’t realize that some of my absolute favorite things are not your favorite. 

Tiffany: [00:03:28] They definitely were not then. They’re growing on me a bit, but uh no they definitely were not. Yeah. So no I’m coming around a little bit in fact, a lot, but thank goodness there are things like the proper gear. 

John: [00:03:39] Warm gear. And I always said from the get go gear is everything. If you have the right gear, you’ll go forever. 

Tiffany: [00:03:46] Yeah. It does make a difference. So we could talk about the first time it was maybe not the first time we’d been riding, but it was the first time I’d gone up the lift.

John: [00:03:57] Okay. 

Tiffany: [00:03:58] Wait, or the lift with you. 

John: [00:04:00] But, okay.. So a quick backstory, we lived in the east coast. We didn’t ride very much on the east coast. 

Tiffany: [00:04:06] Like not really at all.

John: [00:04:07] But oftentimes we would come home for holidays and often when it was Christmas or whatever, I would always try and snowboard as much as possible.

Tiffany: [00:04:14] And he finally convinced me to go, actually, we were just dating. We were just dating. It was before we got married. So when we would come back to visit your parents over holidays, or 

John: [00:04:21] I really think we were married.

Tiffany: [00:04:24] Were we?  

John: [00:04:24] Yeah, I think so. 

Tiffany: [00:04:25] I thought it was, we were still dating. 

John: [00:04:27] But we had just gotten married because I seriously was like, you were ready for divorce.

Tiffany: [00:04:33] It was bad. It was so bad. Okay. So here’s the story. 

John: [00:04:35] It was like, Today is your last day Bucko. That’s me like really cleaning up the conversation. 

Tiffany: [00:04:45] The conversation was not very clean. It was not a family friendly podcast material, but 

John: [00:04:50] It was not. 

Tiffany: [00:04:51] So is it the story is that. We hit, I had taken lessons and I had gotten fairly comfortable on like the bunny slopes.

And I had to gotten pretty comfortable with taking a lesson for, I don’t know, a couple of days. And finally it wasn’t just, you know, spending the day on my butt. And so I was like, yeah, I can do the lift. I’ve done the lift with my instructor. I can do the lift with you. So I went up the lift with John and his three younger siblings.

They’re 11, 12, and 13 years younger than us. And they all knew this mountain. They grew up on this mountain. 

John: [00:05:20] We know this mountain really well. 

Tiffany: [00:05:22] This is the mountain. 

John: [00:05:23] We knew this mountain really well. 

Tiffany: [00:05:26] We knew this really well, or they knew this mountain really well. Now I know this mountain really well, but they knew this mountain really well.

And so they’re like, yeah, let’s go up to the lift. You can do it now. Right. And I was like, yeah, I can do it. So I said, just don’t leave me. Just tell me where I need to go. So we get to the top and they’re like, okay. So we’re going to go down this way and just stay to the right stay to the right. And you’ll meet us at the bottom. We’re going to stay to the trail at the right. Well, now I know what they were meaning. But then I stayed all the way to the right. 

John: [00:05:52] Far right. Which was the worst possible decision you could have. 

Tiffany: [00:05:56] But I didn’t know that. It was a green run, 

John: [00:06:00] It is the one run on the mountain that every one of us, since we started snowboarding family, friends, nobody goes down that run.

Tiffany: [00:06:09] You don’t take it on a board. It’s fine for skis and for beginning skier. It is not okay for a snowboard. You do not have enough speed and you get stuck. So needless to say, they were all faster than me because I was brand new and they all took off and I thought I knew I was supposed to stay right So I stayed, right I fell and fell and then got stuck and couldn’t walk or had to unstrap and walk because I couldn’t get back up. And then I finally got to a point where I could strap back in and start heading down the mountain again. And beginner move ended up falling into like this, big pow field on the side of the run.

And this was right about the time that I could see the bottom of the run and they could see me. And they’re like, what are you doing? What’s going on? What’s wrong. 

John: [00:06:52] We’d been checking up and looking. And did she go in front of us? Did she get lost? Where did she go?

Tiffany: [00:06:57] I will admit they’d probably been waiting a good 15 minutes by this point because I had been stuck for what seemed like a million years.

So I get stuck. I’d never been stuck in pow before I had no idea how to get up and I just kept trying and trying. And if you’ve ever been in snow when you can’t get up out of it, when it’s really deep, you know what I’m talking about. But I also had a board strapped to my feet that I’m not comfortable with and I don’t know it was not fun. So I finally get myself up. I am hot. I am miserable. I am like this stinks. They left me. I was so mad. Cause here the whole time I’m trying to pull myself out of the snow mind you. I’m sitting here going. Okay. 

John: [00:07:33] If only you could see her face, the angry face, like it’s, so 

Tiffany: [00:07:37] it’s still vivid.

I was like, they said they wouldn’t leave me. I told them not to leave me and they assured me they wouldn’t leave me. So then when I get down there and the first words out of John’s mouth are. What’s wrong? What happened? It was like, you want to know what happened? You blankety blank happened. You left me.

I was so mad. His sister at the time, his youngest sister was probably 11, 10. And. She caught the tail end of my spew. And she looked at me with the widest eyes I’ve ever seen on her face. 

John: [00:08:11] I think everybody’s eyes were really wide once we realized , oh oh, this is happening. 

Tiffany: [00:08:15] And I think she really did think like I was going to punch him in the face or something.

I was hot. I don’t think I was like, I am done. I unstrapped. I started walking off. I took off my gloves. I was like, I am done. I am done snowboarding. This can be your thing. I am not having it. And I literally started walking away. 

John: [00:08:31] It was definitely not the time to say you’re really cute when you’re angry.

Tiffany: [00:08:36] No, it was it wasn’t. Um, needless to say, we resolved it. 

We did resolve it and believe it or not, he convinced me to go again. But next time he was, he was very smart. He did not leave my side 

John: [00:08:53] In my defense. I got nothing. 

Tiffany: [00:08:58] So the moral of the story is 

John: [00:09:01] read the trail signs that  say go down Cascade. not, Holiday. But that’s not in my defense or I’m definitely not going to stir that up. So that wouldn’t be fair. 

Tiffany: [00:09:09] The moral of the story is that you should definitely take lessons. And when you say you’re going to stick with your buddy, you stick with your buddy and they’re in eyesight.

Which is why we actually drive that point home with our kids. So that kind of, we should probably move into a. You know, the talking about with the kids, not how just we got started in almost before we like almost stopped having kids or didn’t ever have kids. 

John: [00:09:32] Oh, what would that have been like? 

Tiffany: [00:09:34] A whole new life?

John: [00:09:35] Nobody thinks about that. Yeah. Yeah. No, nevermind 

Tiffany: [00:09:38] I will say on our trips after that. He did finally convince me to get back out there and try again. And it started growing on me a bit. So we took a few trips. Um, here and there, we went to Stowe we went to Bend and we went to Bachelor and did had some fun trips with friends and sometimes with just us.

And that really started to kind grow on us. And then, um, he, and then eventually we ended up moving out west for many reasons, but one of them was to be closer to mountains and stuff. Um, I guess by this point I actually didn’t hate life. 

John: [00:10:09] She was starting to enjoy it. She’d gotten to the point where she was like, oh, this is really fun.

Tiffany: [00:10:16] With reservation. 

John: [00:10:18] So she caught the bug. And now that we’re out here, you’ve really taken off and fallen in love with a lot of the things which really gets me stoked and super excited. But since this is a family podcast, let’s bring it back to the family and chat about the kids. 

Tiffany: [00:10:35] So we started with our kids when they were really little, but our oldest actually did not start on a snowboard.

We actually did start him on skis like…

John: [00:10:43] We started him on skis. 

Tiffany: [00:10:45] It lasted for one, two days?

John: [00:10:48] Tops. 

Tiffany: [00:10:48] Yeah. It really quickly, we, he, it didn’t really, it didn’t really connect. It was less than a season for sure. It was only a couple of days. And I think he was only like, Gosh, like 16 months or something. 

John: [00:10:59] Yeah. And he had center of gravity of the inflatable flailing arm, man. He had no chance really of being successful. We were on boards, he was on skis. Or we were walking with him. 

Tiffany: [00:11:10] He’s always been very tall for his age. And he was very, a very tall toddler. And so it was just a really tough balance for him. It was difficult. 

Yeah, it was difficult. So needless to say, the next time we went back up there, we actually picked up a Burton Riglet and put him on a it.

And he was, he had probably 18 – between 18 months and two years old. I forget exactly what, whether we would take it first in the spring or if it was first in the middle of winter. So that would kind of depend 

John: [00:11:34] Spring is, always a terrific time to take kids up there though. Once the season is getting sunnier and it’s a lot nicer weather.

Yeah. Everybody’s going to have more fun when the sun’s out or Bluebird skies. Especially if it’s your first time, because if you’re miserable and you go down say Holiday, a green flat run, 

Tiffany: [00:11:54] It’s not fun for anyone. And I will, I’ll just have to interject this because I think the next time we went, I know your dad went with us.

I remember this time. And you guys were having the time of your life. And it was just that temperature where it was wet here in the Pacific Northwest. Right? Like it’s wet if it’s not cold enough. And that happens. Semi Hopkins right around freezing. Right. And so I remember sitting on the chair lift, and you guys are like hunkering down on the chairlift and but thrilled because you’re still getting to go ride – well, your dad skis – , but you’re getting ready to go, take your run.

And you’re like, this is awesome. This is so great. The snow is so good. And I’m sitting over there going, I am so miserable because I was still at that phase where it was. I didn’t quite move enough. I think when I was riding, like there wasn’t that same, it was a different, that different level of riding. 

John: [00:12:40] It was not a powerful right.

Tiffany: [00:12:42] So I never was getting warm enough on the run to then stay warm enough on the chairlift. And so I was just getting miserably cold and you guys were like, this is awesome. And I’m like, I’m going to go get something warm to drink in the lodge, which happens. Sometimes it happens to, you can, he can handle the cold a lot more than I can.

So real talk there. But yeah, with the kids, the spring time is a great time to have them learn, because if you can get that spring, sunny spring day, that’s still at night crisp and cold, so it’s not wet. It’s so nice. 

John: [00:13:08] It’s easy to keep those days light and playful and everybody can stay a whole lot happier.

Um, and if those first trips, when they’re short, they’re easy, they’re fun. Everybody is going to have more way more fun. It’s not going to be this forced. “You’re going to love this because I love this” thing that -I don’t know where that energy would come from. It certainly wouldn’t come from me.

Tiffany: [00:13:32] Of course not. 

John: [00:13:33] No, there’d be zero stoke there. 

Tiffany: [00:13:35] I could totally ask our kids and they wouldn’t say that has ever come out. No, never. No, not even once. Yeah. But, um, when we first. When we first went, we would make sure too that the trips were short themselves. So sometimes we would go up and it stunk because we would go up with the mindset of when they’re tired, they’re tired and we’d go home and or we take turns at that point and go ride on our own while the other one just plays at the base in the snow, because the kids are or take them in for hot  

John: [00:14:00] yes. Tag team back and forth, back and forth. You got a lap. Okay. Now I get a lap. Okay. You got French fries last time you got to get hot chocolate at this time. 

Tiffany: [00:14:08] My favorite way to do it when they were young, when the kids were that age though, was to actually take grandma with us. It happened a few times and it was great because I actually remember once I think it was when Garrett was a baby.

I think I remember once when we were still helping Tomer learn and Garrett was a baby and your mom came with us and she sat in the lodge and was happy to cuddle baby. 

John: [00:14:29] Oh yeah she had hot chocolate, a book and a baby. 

Tiffany: [00:14:31] And she was just happy as a clam. And I would just come into nurse. And then I would go back out for a while and I would come in nurse, warm up myself and go back out and it was beautiful.

And then when Tomer got too tired and was done, she went, he went in with her for awhile. And then when they were all done done, then we finally wrapped it up and called it a day. But it worked out really well because we both got a lot more ride time. We know it’s not always possible to do that, but if you can? Use it! 

John: [00:14:56] Yes. Use it. Use whatever resources you have available. 

Tiffany: [00:15:00] That’s right. It makes it easier. And even if you don’t have a grandma close by, see if you can pair up with another family where you can do some trade-offs too. Cause that also works can work out really well. The other thing I have to say too, is that the first times we took them, there was a lot less focus on being on the board and a lot more focus on having fun at the mountain so that the mountain became a fun place where it was sometimes it was just sledding. Sometimes it was playing in the snow. Sometimes it was throwing snowballs at your brother. Sometimes it was just, 

John: [00:15:33] It’s definitely investing in the future.

It’s one of those things where if you ever want to go back to the mountain, Again, if you enjoy being up there and you want your family to be involved with it as I was delusional and wanted them all to be there, to share this fun time. Yes, you must keep it fun because.

Tiffany: [00:15:58] I don’t know if I’ll edit that out or if you’ll hear it, because that was hilarious. I could just hear it in John’s stomach from across the room. Holy cow. I think he’s hungry. 

John: [00:16:10] If you keep it fun, you will go back. And if you don’t have your most epic time every time, but you’re going to go back. That’s still worth it.

Yeah, because yeah. You’re still going to the mountain, right? 

Tiffany: [00:16:27] The perk at this stage too, is that most resorts when they’re really young, like that, do not charge for them in the kid area because we realized that also can get expensive. If you’re paying for tickets for the whole family. And then you only ride for an hour and you’re like , uh, 

John: [00:16:44] I saw some resorts this season that had free parks set up on down-low areas.

So if you want to come learn, you can ride the carpet. You can play in the little play park, you can do these lower feature areas. And it’s so wonderful because you can get up there and really figure out, oh yeah, this is a lot of fun. The kids get excited. You play about it. You haven’t spent an arm and a leg so you’re angry about getting every last penny out of what you paid for that lift ticket. 

Make it fun.

Tiffany: [00:17:11] I will say too, there was once or twice. It wasn’t very often, but there were a couple of times where we just knew, like this day is not going to pan out for both of us to get to ride enough. And um, sometimes I would just let John get a ticket, um, since clearly he’s the more obsessed one.

Um, but I would, sometimes it was, it didn’t happen a lot, but every once in a while, if it was like, Hey, grandma can’t come. Or as on the write-up, the kids are already starting to have a cranky day. I would sometimes -there was once or twice where I was like, Hey, why don’t just you get a ticket today?

And I’m just going to sit this one out and just play with the kids or be down here at the base, because I just knew we weren’t going to get their money’s worth out of the tickets. It’s not ideal. And I know that’s not like the best scenario you want to hear, but it’s the reality of teaching them and building them up to be ready to ride.

John: [00:17:56] And you can always look at half day ticket options as well, because yeah. Some places offer it an hour increments like Stevens does. And for eight hour blocks other places, the afternoon is your half day window, and that can save you a lot of money. Um, and you typically will miss a lot of the rush to a lot of the early birds in the first trackers.

If you will, are out there- the dawn patrol -in there they’re done and gone, they’ve got season passes. They’re not worried about it. And you can. Really enjoy yourself on a half day. You’re not going to be as tired and everybody is still going to have that fun time and it gives you enough time to play and do whatever you want to do, get situated.

Cause it’s always going to take twice as long as you think it’s going to, to get ready. Yeah. Or five times like it does with me. 

Tiffany: [00:18:40] Yeah and I like that you brought that up cause I had forgotten about that. There were a few times that we did that too, where. Well, you might get a full day pass. And then I would just start with the kids in the morning and then just pick up a half day or vice versa.

We did do that a handful of times to where then that’s we both got some time to ride. And so nobody felt like they were missing out, but we didn’t spend as much money because we knew we weren’t both going to ride all day long. Um, it’d be great. Um, if any resort owners or people who have any say, so at resorts or listening for parents, if you would do a shared parent ticket, it would be the smartest marketing move you could do because you would be building up a whole new generation of skiers and snowboarders and having parents who are happy to come back to you because you’re making it more feasible for their family. Side note. 

John: [00:19:25] Definitely. 

Tiffany: [00:19:27] So then, um, the other thing that was really important for us when the kids were that age and really even now, too, is noticing the signs of the imminent meltdown. You know, them as a parent, when you can see oh, it’s about to hit the fan. I know that the hangry meltdown or the tired meltdown is about to hit and if I don’t address it, The whole day is ruined. And either it’s, if it’s something that, you know, you can stop and fix with a food, then great stop and fix it with food. But if you know, okay, this day is done, call it before you get there, watch the signs and stop it. Because if you don’t, it just can turn into the biggest disaster ever.

And if you leave on that note before the meltdown happens, like we’ve said already, they’re gonna want to come back. 

John: [00:20:13] But no, I’m not done with the mountain. I haven’t been here long enough. I want to ride more. Do you know how much I paid for this ticket? It’s all about managing expectations. It was the hardest thing for me to do.

Tiffany: [00:20:28] It’s really tough.

John: [00:20:29] I don’t want to leave the mountain. This is my happy place. I didn’t get to ride the way I wanted to it’s okay. Yeah. You’re going to come back. Just keep coming back because now. After we’ve gone through all of these things. Can we ride longer 

Tiffany: [00:20:46] Yup, usually…

Okay. So I’m going to tell this real story, because this is also important to know. So earlier this season we went somewhere. We went two times. We went on two trips to different mountains from our home mountain and with Indy Pass and we visited, um, Mission Ridge and we visited um, Silver, 

John: [00:21:09] Silver Mountain Resort.

Tiffany: [00:21:10] And we spent two days at both of those resorts and I kid you not the first day at both of those resorts, it was a wash. 

John: [00:21:16] Oh, they were, oh, it’s so bad. 

It’s so bad 

Tiffany: [00:21:20] That 

John: [00:21:20] feeling we 

Tiffany: [00:21:21] said he never has yet that that’s happening right now. I can see it on his face too. So basically. We got there. It was a new environment.

The certain areas were steeper than they were used to, or the hid, the terrain was slightly different. And so there was like the freak out moments. It was new and different. It was more challenging in some ways. And so they had freak out moments and the first day was terrible and they ended up like, The next day though was much, much better.

And then our oldest was like, we’ve just decided that the first day is the worst. And the second is yeah. 

John: [00:21:51] Yeah. First is the worst. Second is the best as they’re chanting this in the backseat. Yeah. 

Tiffany: [00:21:56] And I was like, Okay. So now we have to shift this in our mindset from now on that when we take them to a new place where they’re going to be challenged, we’re just going to have to realize that day one.

We’re gonna have to treat like we did when they were toddlers. 

John: [00:22:06] Yeah, no, it’s their mindset. No matter what I want to do, they’ve already kind of dropped a gauntlet and said, this is how it’s going to be old, man. 

Tiffany: [00:22:13] At least for now, hopefully that’ll change. But for now that’s kind of where we’re at is when we start to, when you start to push their limits a bit, that’s just what happens.

John: [00:22:21] One thing that we’ve found is the way that we can make them ride longer now. And this is courtesy of Mr. Jeremy Jones. Well, who creator of Jones Snowboards check them out. He is amazing, inspirational. Also Protect Our Winters. Please check that out. He had me think about a lift ride minimum or a run minimum, basically.

That’s what he said he did with his kids. It’s a great idea. It’s what we do with ours too, where we say, okay, today we need to get. Five runs seven runs, 10 runs. Know your mountain. If it’s a long slope, you may only be getting three to five runs. If you are making fast, hot laps, then you know, it may be a 10 run minimum, but figure out a target number of goal.

You work towards it every time. It becomes a conversation that we have on the chairlift. The boys ask, how many is this? Oh , no, no, no. We’re at number six. We’ve got four more to go, and then it’s hot chocolate time. They’re all about it. And it is honestly made things a whole lot easier for both of us. It’s managing expectations for them.

They know kind of the target for the day for us, we at least have a window of we’re going to get this. 

Tiffany: [00:23:28] Yeah. And the best part is when that target run number can be enough where it’s a little bit of a stretch for them. So it pushes them a little bit, but it’s also enough where it like meets that okay, if we have to leave right at this, it’s… it’s I still felt like I got a good day and they’re going to want it. And everybody’s again, going to want to come back, but it’s not so far that you’ve pushed everybody into meltdown zone. 

John: [00:23:51] You’re not at the breaking point here. You’re not at the, you know, we’ll never return. 

Tiffany: [00:23:56] And sometimes we hit and surpass our goal. And that’s really cool when that happens, but other times it’s like and sometimes we don’t even hit the goal, but if we have the goal, it keeps everybody kind of pushing towards it. It 

John: [00:24:05] It helps us stay accountable to each other without just yelling and frustration. There’s a clear expectation. Oftentimes we have to lower ours and they oftentimes have to increase theirs.

But yeah. 

Tiffany: [00:24:16] The other thing that you and Jeremy, um, like bonded over, I think at a, at the same event was when you guys were talking about. 

John: [00:24:23] Pockets snacks. Yes. Pocket snacks  are a must and I’ll, 

Tiffany: [00:24:27] A particular pocket snack. You both have the same, like thing you were like, yeah, that’s what I always use to motivate my kids.

John: [00:24:33] Skittles, 

Tiffany: [00:24:34] Skittles, 

John: [00:24:34] always Skittles. I thought she was going to go to pocket bacon. I wasn’t sure were, but I had to remember, but definitely Skittles. 

Tiffany: [00:24:41] Yep. I like walked up in the middle of their conversation when he was talking with him and they were like totally geeking out over like, Yes, you always have to  have Skittles in your pocket?

John: [00:24:48] We were having a dad moment. 

Tiffany: [00:24:50] They were totally  having a dad, dad moment with a line of people behind them. 

John: [00:24:54] I was meeting Jeremy Jones. It was like a dream come true. And then we dadded out hard. It was pretty rad. 

Tiffany: [00:24:59] Yeah. So anyway, yeah, that also brings us to pocket snacks. You always need to have pockets snacks. 

John: [00:25:04] So what do you really need?  Pocket snacks you mentioned. And you pretty much, well, if you have pockets snacks, you’re good to go. 

Tiffany: [00:25:11] Yeah, pocket snacks I mean, that’s nine out of 10. That’s really the biggest thing, but isn’t that? Anything with kids. Oh snacks. If you don’t have snacks, you might as well just call it? Likeon your way to go buy snacks you better take snacks.

That’s pretty much the way it goes. 

John: [00:25:25] Snacks. 

Tiffany: [00:25:25] Yeah. But, um, so real talk though, if you want to get started and you’re like, okay, but it seems too expensive. What do I really need? And how do I make this work without spending an arm and a leg, and then realizing we all hate it, like I used to, um, so what you really need to break it down to start is.

Waterproof. Warm insulated probably for the kids, but yet breathable. If you ideally, um, outerwear, that’s really what it boils down to and base layers that are not cotton. Like those two things alone for the most part are the most essential because almost everything else you can rent or borrow to try out.

Um, I mean, and you might even be able to rent  or borrow, not rent, but borrow the outerwear. As well, because if you have a friend who tries it out, see it, or see about hand-me-downs from a friend or a letter, or even marketplace those kinds of places. If you’re wanting to try it out and just get your feet wet, but those are kind of the things you absolutely have to have, but they also work great for other snow play.

So even if all else fails and everybody hates life up on the mountain, then at least, you know, Hey, we can still use this for sledding or whatever. 

John: [00:26:27] If you have a general idea of what to look for, you’re going to find that you can. Locate those items in those places, Facebook marketplace, like you said, or Craigslist or wherever, even close out websites and things like that, too.

If you know what you’re looking for, you can buy stuff for a lot cheaper than you realize that’s still good quality stuff. Going used, you can find some stuff if you know, the type of stuff you’re looking for. 

Tiffany: [00:26:53] Yep. Speaking of, I know that there are several places and I’ll try to, um, look at a couple and put them in the show notes too.

I know there’s several places right now that are having excellent spring sales. And that’s another pro tip here. Is that what we do most of the time is we look at the end of our season at everybody’s gear and Who’s going to be definitely outgrown for next year and will need the next size up.

John: [00:27:13] There is no end of the season. I don’t want to say that. 

Tiffany: [00:27:17] But around this time of year around April ish, we start looking and saying who is going to be completely out of their stuff next year and is going to need new pants or new bibs or a new jacket. And we start looking now to see if there happened to be any in their size, on a big discount.

. And many, many times I’ve been able to find the kid’s gear at like 50% off at this time a year. So if you’re thinking about it for next year, look now, look through the summer. 

John: [00:27:44] Shop the spring and summer sales. 

Tiffany: [00:27:45] Yup. Sometimes you’ll find them in a rack in a store if you have a local REI, but check marketplace and check online stores out.

Like I said, I’ll put a few of our favorites in the show notes, so you can find them to look through, but it has saved us so much money to do it that way. 

John: [00:27:59] Oftentimes too, I’ll throw in the support, your local shop a comment here. If you’re looking on marketplace, there are some local shops, I think that are also putting up their closeout stuff.

That’s still this year’s stuff or. Deep discounts though, that you can support your local spots. That may be more of a brick and mortar. But they’re still listing those things. They’re easy to find. Check the description. Tiffany’s got the hookups. 

Tiffany: [00:28:25] The other thing that to point out too, is that besides marketplace there’s a lot of other places you can look for, used gear on Facebook.

John: [00:28:33] You may find that there’s an event like a ski swap that’s happening near you. Oftentimes you may find it more of a mountain town, um, or bigger cities. I know, like we would go to one that was up in Seattle and it was. Like at the expo center there. Um, I know that they’re down here in Portland.

They’re all over. Denver has tons of them, wherever you may be, look around and see, you may find an event like that. Big, big discounts on good quality gear, because you know that the people who are running it are saying, Hey, we don’t want the cheap fall apart stuff. And that’s where you really can get started for a reasonable price. 

Tiffany: [00:29:06] And you have, um, he’s actually part of a couple of groups on Facebook too, where he’ll sell some of the stuff that our kids outgrow or we’ll pick up stuff that they’re getting ready to need as well. 

John: [00:29:19] Yep. Snowboard Trader and  kids snowboard trader, um, are the two that I. Primarily go back and forth with there’s a lot that have branched off of that.

All starting from the base of dig my quiver which is an amazing group that is all a bunch of crazy snowboard lovers. Like me. If you want to go down the crazy rabbit hole, you’ll find it there. 

Tiffany: [00:29:39] Um, yeah. And there’s a women’s specific group too. Just FYI. 

John: [00:29:44] Dig the stoke bury the hate, moving on. 

Tiffany: [00:29:47] Okay. Back to kids.

Um, so yeah, waterproof, breathable, outerwear, and we have a full guide on how to choose the pants and jacket too. So again, I’ll link to those. 

John: [00:29:58] You have a blog post that tells people exactly how to find the best gear. 

Tiffany: [00:30:02] I do. So even if you’re, out in the store looking, if you go armed with that information, you’re going to know what your, what.

What to look for so that you buy something that’s quality and that will last, um, and yeah, it’s way too much to go into in this particular podcast, but we potentially can do some more later, but all the information is there. And it talks about what to look for in terms of water waterproof and breathability ratings and, um, like 

John: [00:30:25] Construction, materials, all of those sorts of things.

Tiffany: [00:30:28] Yeah. Yeah. And then, um, Beyond that if you’re ready to invest too, if you know that you want your kids to keep going with you, we got our kids. Our first, their first snowboard was a Burton Riglet and. It’s the perfect like board for a toddler. 

John: [00:30:46] So they’re terrific. The Riglet, if you’re familiar with how snowboard looks at all, it has metal edges that go all the way around it.

That’s what contacts the snow. That’s what gives you that, that edge, a bite to carve, to make the turns, et cetera. The Riglet does not have that. It’s all plastic. There’s no metal on it. The edges are actually beveled up. So there’s no. It’s much tougher for the kids to catch an edge. There’s really no edge to catch.

So it keeps them from doing the worst slams. Cause that’s always what happens when you catch an edge. You’re done. It’ll just whiplash you into the snow, and the Wriglet it’s awesome because it doesn’t have that. And. It’s got an awesome reel on the front of it. So it’s kinda like a draw cord that you pull out and you can literally tow them.

So we could start on very mellow slopes on kind of flats slopes. 

Tiffany: [00:31:32] Shoot, you can start on your carpet at home, 

John: [00:31:33] which actually we did. Yeah. I have a cover for $19 or something like that, that snaps over yeah. 

Tiffany: [00:31:40] For hard floors but then it also works on carpet, 

John: [00:31:42] floors and carpet. Exactly. Or you can just do it without it.

I’ve seen lots of people do that too. It works great because it helps them figure out their balance point, how to stand on it, get used to it as it’s moving underneath of them. They’re all bundled up in all of their gear and it feels more awkward. Yeah. Yeah. 

Tiffany: [00:31:57] And the other thing that I really loved about the Riglet at this stage is that it uses regular snow boots.

So if your kid has a pair of regular snow boots, you don’t have to buy special boots. You literally can just buy the board and start them on that as   learning. So that’s why I think it’s so great as a starter because it’s also really reasonably priced like a hundred bucks. Yeah. I think with bindings it’s a little more, but I want to say like it’s less than 200 with board and bindings and for you can easily find them used for a hundred bucks or less.

Yes. Yeah. So it’s a great way to start. Um, if your kids are a little bit older though, 

John: [00:32:32] then I would say, look for something after you’ve progressed from this and they need a first   

Tiffany: [00:32:37] or if you’re starting and your kids are older and won’t fit that the Riglet anymore. 

John: [00:32:41] So is also true. We prefer brands that are a little bit more core to the industry.

So we would say like never summer never summer Bantam is what Garrett is riding this year. This is my first year on an Never summer. Tiffany has been preaching   summer and now Tomer. We all four of us have never summer boards. They’re amazing. They rip. And the construction’s amazing, the quality   made in the U S um, I love them.

I’m a convert. Now, prior to that, I was a huge fan of Mervin manufacturing, Lib Tec still great, excellent boards also made in the U S made just up in Washington. So you could go with the Gnu Recess or the L banana blaster. They’re both. Terrific boards to get started with good entry-level made by excellent companies.

Also Jones is another brand that makes excellent boards, high quality, um, same price for these two 50, basically for a big kids board, if you will. So the Jones Prodigy, the Never Summer Bantam. 

Tiffany: [00:33:38] The Jones is higher than that if I recall 

$250 right now 

John: [00:33:42] on the summer spring sales, that’s why by now, by now all of these boards, I just checked prior to recording.

Two 50, Never Summer Bantam, Gnu Recess, Lib Tech Banana Blaster, Jones Prodigy. They’re all excellent boards that will grow with them as their skills progress too. It’s not going to be, we bought some cheaper boards that they were, they worked. Okay. Yeah. But they weren’t as durable. They didn’t hold up as well.

The edges kind of wore out. They didn’t hold wax, et cetera. We won’t say the name and throw anybody under the bus. 

They were great first boards. 

Tiffany: [00:34:13] Yeah, they were. And they’re a well-known brand too. They’re just, the construction definitely is not as nice. 

John: [00:34:19] Our boys are rough on things. Boys are rough on everything and say, and it’s tough for me because I collect these things, but they’re tools, not jewels.

And. Yeah, I’m getting some crazy faces from mama over here who keeps her boards in tiptop shape, pristine to like 

Tiffany: [00:34:36] Until I get on a lift, chunk out of it, but that’s a story for another day. 

John: [00:34:40] It’s your kid. So you can’t really throw him off the lift can ya?  

Um, yeah, those are some great boards to start with.

Tiffany: [00:34:46] If you’re just getting, I’m just getting into it and they will need bindings, but you can keep the bindings pretty basic. And really just about any kids binding at that stage isn’t going to make or break anything. No. So it’s just whatever you can find for a good deal. Um, for the most part is what I would go with at that stage and boots for the same boots, really making sure they’re comfortable and they fit, but actually one’s for boots for kids, the, um, Again, Burton.

I’m going to throw them here because the thing I love most about the Burton boots for kids is that they have a grow with me system. So when you buy them, you, if you buy them, when your kid is at the low end of a particular size, they actually will grow with them into the next size. So you’ll get at least two full sizes out of one boot by taking out a portion and cutting off a portion of your liner.

So that alone is worth everything so much. Yes. And, um, they really lasted through our kids. We were able to sell them again, too. So that was the other thing, is that because the kids. Only wear them for such a short time. They had tons of life left and we were able to resale, resell them and get at least half our money back.

John: [00:35:48] That’s the thing to think about too. If you buy quality gear, there’s other people like you that are looking for quality gear and knowing snowboard, trader kids in the word trader all of your other local ski swaps and things. Find those places, because that’s where you can, you find, you, you pay a hundred bucks for a boot and then you turn around and you sell it for 50 or 60 bucks that boot wasn’t a hundred bucks.

Tiffany: [00:36:09] No. And the other thing too, as you were talking, I remember this too. There was one year in particular that we had a really hard time knowing what size board to buy for Tomer, because he had, was going through this major growth spurt. And I was like, I don’t trust buying this next size board because I’m afraid you’re going to blow past it.

So we ended up actually buying him a season long rental. And instead of doing it at the mountain where it’s, I love to support the mountains, but it also, if you’re going to be going like that about a year, I think we went like 15, 20 days. And so when, at least, and so when you’re looking at that many days, that’s a lot of money on a kid’s rental.

That’s more than buying one. And so we ended up doing a season long rental from a local board shop and it was so economical. I think it was like, Less than $200 for a board’s boots, bindings. And the perk was that you could come back mid season and upsize if your kid grew. And we were right at the edge on boards and boot size, and I was really nervous about dropping the money on it that year.

And. It paid off. It totally paid off. It was totally worth it. So if you have local board shops checking into a season long rental, if you’re not quite ready to spring for the full package is also another great way to save some money. 

John: [00:37:23] And now bigger stores like REI or getting into that Evo does it here locally.

Um, there’s a lot of other options out there. So really explore what you have around you. 

Tiffany: [00:37:35] Totaly and, um, the other thing I have to just say, so most podcast episodes I ask what has been, what’s something you wish you would have had from the get-go that has just made things so much better, or what’s a piece of gear that you couldn’t do without, and I’m going to tell you individual gear bags.

Yes. So we have a particular bag that we like, and it’s a Dakine Board, or boot bag, I think technically it’s a boot bag, but. Regardless. It doesn’t matter if it’s a special brand or if it’s just a duffel bag, but if everybody has their own bag where they put their own gear and it’s always in that spot, it’s so much easier, so much easier.

And we tried once where we just put everybody’s stuff in or well, more than once we tried for awhile or we just put everybody’s stuff all in one. Yeah, we tried 

one bin. Let’s keep it all organized. Everything in one place it’ll work perfectly. 

Somebody’s gloves got forgotten because it was buried or we thought they were underneath somebody else’s we thought I saw the second one or something didn’t get put back in the bag that we thought was in the bag.

It was just too hard to keep track of everybody’s stuff. But when everybody’s gear bag is separate and you’re able to be like, okay, each bag needs pants and you just go through the checklist, pants, jacket, gloves, helmet, all of those things. It’s a lot easier to 

John: [00:38:45] Laminate it. Checklists zip tied to the bag.

Tiffany: [00:38:48] All right. The pants in here are, the boots in here are, is the jacket, the helmet, all of that stuff. It’s a lot easier to see when you’re only looking at one person versus three, four or five people in your family. 

John: [00:38:59] It’s much easier to keep track of. And we have stayed a lot more organized and the boys now do a lot of their packing unpacking, put it on the dryer, take it off the dryer, put it back in my bag.

I know my gloves go in this pocket. I know my socks go in that pocket. It’s so much better now. Yep. 

Tiffany: [00:39:16] Yep. It made things a million times easier. And, um, as far as the rest of the stuff, so things like your gloves, your mittens, your face mask, a lot of those are things that you probably have around for cool weather outings anyway, if not, they’re pretty inexpensive options available. Um, or you can go all out. I, we really love um, Marino wool layers or, um, ninja suits for the kids. Airblaster Ninja Suits are phenomenal for handy for the kids. We really, really like those, but they’re not the cheapest. And so actually our kids have.

Before we picked those up for them on discount on spring sale, by the way. Um, we actually got them some base layers from Costco. They’re like the 32 degree brand, I think. And they worked fine. 

Yeah, they were, they were simple. They were easy. Um, now that we have ninja suits, though, they stay warmer. Garrett wants to live in his nonstop, whether we’re going to the mountain or not, they quickly become the new favorites.

I want to wear these all the time everywhere. Why can’t I go to the grocery store and just my ninja suit, 

Pretty much the truth. And I mean, they’re comfortable. So who can argue with them? I mean, I do because we’re not actually going to the store in an industry, but you know, 

I have 

On the way to her from the m a different story than just like a random Tuesday.

Yeah. 

They have the coolest designs too. And the looks that I get in the weirdest colors that I wear, it’s so much fun. 

Oh yeah. So anyway, all of those other things are pretty easy and inexpensive, so that is that’s nice. Um, And lots of options out there and they don’t always have to be the super expensive ones when you’re getting started.

Yeah. You don’t need them when you’re starting. And I would say though, if you’re going to invest in something right off the bat, even if you’re not ready to invest in the board, a helmet is probably a good place to start because you can’t. Fix the head.

John: [00:41:05] I didn’t ride with a helmet for years and years and years, and even watching the pros that I grew up watching, not wear helmets and it was this whole thing. And then. You just stop and look at yourself in the mirror and you go, really? You have kids like, yeah, really 

Tiffany: [00:41:20] Well and I will say we are probably running real long on this episode, but I will say there was one time when we were riding with your family and your sister took a real hard hit.

And I think her helmet is what saved her from a much worse. 

John: [00:41:33] I would agree she got a concussion and she was in rough shape, but she only ran into the ski netting too. 

Tiffany: [00:41:39] And the poles. It was a little icy and it was how her head hit the ground. 

John: [00:41:43] She just whipped lashed down. But I mean, she didn’t run into any person or hard structure.

It was just the ground and the helmet made a big difference. 

Tiffany: [00:41:50] It was actually the post that we’ve been getting held up was what ended or started at caught her ski and then threw her down. But yeah. Anyway, I saw the thing happened. It was bad news. Yeah. So helmets are, have definitely their place. They’ve saved my butt once or twice too.

But really truthfully, we can tell you. All the stuff that you need to pack or borrow or rent or find on marketplace, but the one thing you cannot buy that you absolutely must have 

John: [00:42:17] Pocket snacks? Nope. Nope. Must be this one. Yeah. 

Tiffany: [00:42:21] Patience yeah, because as he said, You’re going to be like, I want a ride. I want to ride, or I want to do this, especially if you’ve already been going.

John: [00:42:30] Um, or if you’ve been on the opposite coast, you haven’t written a long time in the mountain. Looks really great in the snow. It looks amazing. The sun’s out. And you’re about to go rip. Yeah. Just gonna wait, we’ll hold it back and have fun. It’s yeah. It’s yeah, it can be a challenge. 

Tiffany: [00:42:42] And even if you’re learning with them, you’re also going to need a lot of patience because you’re going to be trying to learn yourself and they’re going to be learning and.

If you don’t bring your patience, it’s all gonna fall apart. And so the wheels will fall off into it with the mindset of, we’re just going to take this one step at a time and see how it goes and call it before it gets, you know, before everybody gets cranky. Then that is definitely going to be your best friend.

And probably the best tip we could leave you with is just bring more patience than you think you need and snacks and snacks. Yeah, 

John: [00:43:12] yeah get out there. Go have fun. Make it fun. Well, but not quite in that sort of way. That’s probably not the best. 

Tiffany: [00:43:23] Yeah we’re going to have fun, dang it. Takes next. Yeah. Go out there.

John: [00:43:27] Have fun. Enjoy yourself so that you will definitely return. That is the goal. 

Tiffany: [00:43:32] So we hope this has answered some of the questions you have about snowboarding with kids and what you need, what you don’t need. And hopefully made things a little bit relatable because real talk, I hated it when I first went , but, 

but I don’t anymore.

John: [00:43:45] Absolutely. And if you’re be listening to this, gave you more questions. You’re wondering about this. You’re wondering about that. Feel free, reach out. We definitely want to help and get more people excited and get stoked to be out there riding. 

Tiffany: [00:43:58] As I said before, I’ll make sure that in the show notes that you have links to all of the posts that we have that will help you find the gear you need. So things like gear guides to help, what to look for, um, lists to keep you on track. And I’ve also got a printable checklist that you can download as well, 

John: [00:44:16] laminate attached to your bags. It’s a 

lifesaver, right?

Tiffany: [00:44:20] Yeah. So hopefully that will help you guys get out there on the mountain with your family. And we just want to say, thanks again for joining us today, stoke fam um, we really, truly appreciate each and every one of you for listening to the podcast. 

John: [00:44:32] And if you’re enjoying the show, this is that part of the show where we go.

It’d be really great. If you could leave a rating on iTunes and tell him that you really liked the show and leave a review. And we would love to hear that information actually, because it tells us what you love hearing. And you don’t, but the easiest way is to just click that five and then the review and rating notification just goes away real fast, and then it also goes out to more people.

And that’s pretty cool too. 

Tiffany: [00:44:58] Yeah and or even if you’re not a person who loves to do those, just share with a friend who you think might find it useful. That’s also super helpful to us too. 

John: [00:45:05] Honestly, bigger goal. Yeah. Please share the stoke. Get more people excited about heading out there adventuring with their family.

Tiffany: [00:45:13] Yep. That’s all. Ultimately what it’s about for us is helping everybody else get out and find their stoke too. 

John: [00:45:18] So you could say adventure more stress, less 

Tiffany: [00:45:21] You could! And, we’ll see you out there.

John: [00:45:30] Later.