Ryan O'Connell-Cairns was counting the days until Cardrona Alpine Resort opened and he spent all Sunday snowboarding with a mate.
"He just couldn't wait to get there and was really happy after his day snowboarding," his mother, Maude O'Connell, said yesterday.
"He had flash new gear this year and was excited about Cardrona opening."
Just a day later, after contracting meningococcal disease, the Bannockburn 14-year-old died at Dunedin Hospital.
The family was coping with his sudden death by "taking it hour by hour".
"People have been fantastic and we've had lots of phone calls and people calling in and that sort of thing.
It's lovely that people care, and want to do things for you, " Ms O'Connell said.
Ryan was tired and sore after his day snowboarding and his health deteriorated the next day.
"This [meningococcal disease] is a freaky thing and, in this case, it happened so quickly. All I can say is to warn people that they need to look after themselves."
Ryan was a social boy who loved the company of others and he had a wide network of mates.
"There's been lots of texts on his cellphone - his mates leaving special messages for him," Ms O'Connell said.
He led an action-packed life, with so many things crammed in.
It was a struggle to get him to go to bed at night, she said.
Ryan played rugby, basketball and rowed and enjoyed motocross, fishing and hunting with his father, Greg Cairns.
"He was a bit brassed off this year because he wanted to play badminton too, but we said he didn't have the time," she said.
Ryan, their youngest son, started rugby aged 4 when the family lived in Oamaru.
He made the Otago Country representative rugby team at primary school.
This year, he made the Central Otago under-15 basketball team.
An outdoors kid, Ryan loved heading up into the hills with his father, having a cook-up, shooting rabbits and hares, or "just being a boy" at home in Bannockburn, making jumps for his bike.
His mother, a policewoman stationed at Cromwell, said she occasionally ran into some "little scamps" through the course of her work.
"If Ryan knew them, he'd always say, `They're fine with me', and put in a good word for them; he saw the best in everybody," Ms O'Connell said.
His funeral service will be held in Cromwell tomorrow.
