A recent day at Beaver Creek meant girl power, inspiration from a World Cup ski racer, and a serious overdose of pink.

That girl on the right must be famous.

When your child is having a pivotal life-changing moment, you wouldn’t necessarily know it.

You probably won’t find out until much later. Certainly when they ask for money to pay for therapy.

Last weekend, my daughter, Anya, did a Ski Girls Rock ski camp, a program designed by World Champion ski racer Lindsey Vonn. This was the finale event, which meant in addition to spending a day in ski school at Beaver Creek, she had lunch with Lindsey Vonn.

I spent the morning skiing by myself (you know when you suddenly don’t have any kids underfoot and you feel like you’re missing something important like underwear? It was kind of like that, but better.) I took a run down Birds of Prey, the venue for World Cup downhills. I have one word for you: vertigo. That is one hard-packed, steep mother of a run. I also jack-hammered down Grouse Mountain’s bumps. This is something you should never ever do on a spring day before 10 a.m. Knocked my fillings loose.

Boas and balloons during the Ski Girls Rock lesson.

Anya had been skiing with a very fun female instructor and only two other girls. One of the hallmarks of the program is the max 4:1 student-to-instructor ratio. I met up with Anya and about 30 amped-up girls at the Osprey for lunch. A private room was set up with pink balloons, pink flowers, pink M&Ms, pink cupcakes (the girls would undoubtedly be pooping pink the next day after all that food coloring). Pink, you may have guessed, is Lindsey Vonn’s favorite color.

After lunch, the girls gathered around the Olympic gold medalist for a Q&A session. Anya sat up front, studying the tread of Vonn’s sneaker. Her foot was propped up because she recently had knee surgery. My daughter did ask the first question (“When did you start ski racing?”). Now this is notable. Only a few years ago, my daughter wouldn’t even look an adult in the eye, never mind asking a question to a celebrity in a room full of people. Maybe she was empowered! Maybe this would be a pivotal day.

Lindsey Vonn signs Anya’s helmet. Unlike some of the girls, my daughter took a pass on the forehead signing.

The girls asked lots of questions. They all had the good manners not to ask about Vonn’s love life. Or maybe they’d just been reading Charlotte’s Web and not this week’s US Weekly, which features Vonn and boyfriend Tiger Woods on the cover.

The girls’ eyes lit up when Vonn described the goodie bag: Under Armour socks, Ski Girls Rock candy (get it?), and glow-in-the-dark nail polish. All pink, naturally. Femininity aside, Vonn told the girls how much she loves racing at 80 miles and hour…and winning. How she was teetering on the edge of control the day she won Olympic gold in the downhill on Whistler Mountain in 2010. Perhaps it is no coincidence that the nail polish in the swag bag was called “Fierce and Fabulous.”

“Yeah, you might think my favorite color is pink. But you’d be mistaken, friend.”

By the time lunch was over, pink feathers from the boas littered the carpet. “It looks like a flamingo threw up in here,” said one instructor. Out on the mountain, feathers twirled and floated in the air. I had a few stuck to my ski boots.

At the end of the day, I asked Anya if pink was her favorite color. After all, she was wearing a pink boa, pink goggles, and pink helmet, now autographed by Lindsey Vonn.

“No,” she said. “My favorite color is gold.”

Olympic gold, perhaps?

For more info on Lindsey Vonn’s Ski Girls Rock, check out my blog on Epic Moms.