Our Little Ski Bum

My poor hubby. His birthday is jammed in with Mother’s Day. And it’s not that anyone thinks Mother’s Day is necessarily any more important than his b’day, it’s just that there’s a LOT of mothers between my mom, myself and our extended family and friends. It’s a numbers thing. So frequently his b’day kind of gets the short end of the stick. And his b’day is also in pretty close proximity with Ben’s which means two years ago I was exhausted from having just had a baby (and a bunch of relatives in from out-of-town for my brother-in-law’s graduation) and last year we were doing the first birthday thing. So like I said, not much birthday love for Matt. But this year, I swear I redeemed myself. I DID!!

Last summer at the Vail Farmer’s Market, we saw an awesome artist, Sara Melzer. She does gorgeous India ink portraits of ski bums! They’re super colorful and kind of wild and splashy and Matt and I both loved them. We thought at the time about commissioning her to do a portrait from one of our favorite photos of Tabby in her ski gear but we couldn’t really swing or justify the price at the time. So I filed it away in my brain.

This past winter, seeing Matt skiing with his baby girl I knew I had to have the portrait made for him. He just loves sharing his favorite sport with her and takes such pride in her enjoyment and emerging proficiency. So this March I emailed Sara about getting it going and she was wonderful to work with. I sent a few photos, including this one, my fave and she agreed, that was the one. So she took a couple of weeks, worked up a proof and emailed it to me. I was thrilled!! Since Vail is a couple of hours away, I could either have it mailed to me or pick it up … shipping was steepish so I bribed my awesome cousin and his girlfriend with Indian food and he picked it up for me when he was in Vail over spring break.

I made a few slip-ups and I was scared to death he’d figure it out before the big day, but he didn’t! He was totally surprised and he LOVES it. We don’t know where we’ll hang it just yet. But we do know we’ll need a second one featuring Ben … now I just have to find the perfect ski suit.