bullets

• We inherited an outdoor cat to solve our mouse problems from some friends who moved away.  Our outdoor cat has suddenly become an indoor-sleep-on-Rufus's-bed-22-hours-of-the-day-until-I-put-her-out cat.  My husband likes We like her though. 
• I've decided that my favorite daytime listening Pandora station is "70's easy listening" - there is rarely a song I don't love.  I know, I should work in a doctor's office.
• I'm seeing my sweet Squirt blossom at four and a half years old.  I agonized over the thought of him going to Kindergarten this fall, but now I think he's really ready.
• Two weeks ago a dear friend and I set up a "let's meet for dinner come hell or high water" night.  That night was last night.  It was blissful.  We ate lots of food including fried green tomatoes.  We talked and talked and laughed until the restaurant closed and then we walked to my car, I drove her to her car, and we talked for another 30+ minutes.  I left with a smile on my face.  It was a treat.
• Fifth grade homework sucks.  I hate that projects become MY work and I wind up caring more about his responsibilities than he does.  Then again, I thought that midnight feedings sucked until I was on my third and fourth child and then they were easy.  So maybe fifth grade will be like that.  Or maybe not.
• I hate the school science fair.  Please refer to my previous bullet.
• My kids are so hungry when they come home from school.  Today I have dinner prepared for them at 3:30 so we can eat for real and then a snack later.  I'll report back with how that works.
• One of my older children still wets the bed at night and I've gotten my hands on a "potty pager" to try to train the stubborn child out of the habit.  Last night was the dry run, except it wasn't dry, it was wet, more than once, and he hates wearing it.  I hate pee, so there.
• The first part of January was spent painting Mrs. Nesbit's room, and since we've lived in this house six and a half years and I've been looking at dingy not-so-white walls and ugly light fixtures in my bedroom, I just decided to push on through and paint that room too (which happens to be a rather large bedroom).  Ceiling, trim, walls, outlets, light switches, and light fixtures are all new now.  I was an aching, messy, paint covered, non-showering woman on a mission for an entire week, but it is done and I love it!  Now we are drooling over the thought of new carpet, and I hate to drool.
• Because I know you're wondering, our adoption paperwork is in the final stages and we look on track to leave for China on March 14th.  My waves of anxiety have started regarding our/her transition and I'm clinging to the proven fact that God works good through the hard stuff in life.  Not that I wish it to be hard, but I want more of God for sure, so pretty much I can't lose, right?
• The ski season has been a total BUST so far and I am actually praying for several big, powdery snow storms to crush our little town so that I can frolic on the slopes sufficiently before I bring a precious two year-old home from China.  Have you ever known me to pray for snow?  It's bad, people.

snapshots

By default, faceb**k has become my streaming blog.  But in honor of the giant winter storm that is blowing through my neighborhood today, I thought I should post some pictures and video of our winter.
Snow and skiing.  Skiing and snow.  That about sums it up.
Sauce, now called "Cannonball" on his ski race team - in the zone.
Even my little Squirt is up and running on skis this year.
Again - he loves an audience, so I have many pictures of Cannonball in the air.  He will wait at the top of a jump until someone is for sure watching him before he takes off.

This is the boy who won third place in the final state championships - and had a proud mama!

Oh, what is that I see?  Cannonball in the air again?  This time there is a ski coach laying under him to up the stakes a bit!
I actually skied about 15 days this season (compared to the 50+ that each man in my family has skied).  My dear friend Erin treated me to a free ski day at D**r Valley (normally too rich for my blood).  And that's Ashley in the middle.  She was about 12 months pregnant with cute little baby Cooper, so no skiing for her but she came and met us for lunch.  If she didn't she knew we'd talk about her the entire time ;-).
When a ski coach needs the kids to have a visual aid, here you go.
Kindergarten play dates take on a whole new meaning in a ski town.  Here's Rufus (on the right) with his friend Nathaniel "out playing."
Did I mention that we had more company than our cleaning lady I could keep up with?  Here's my dear friend Reeny laughing when Sauce tried to get her to go down a black diamond run with him.  Not a chance.
My sister Amy and her family were the first of our many visitors.  She is in pink getting dragged around the mountain by my maniacs.
And in case that wasn't enough - here is the moving picture version of those maniacs.  They are all Rockstars in my book.
AND - it is still snowing.  The end.

the white stuff

The whirlwind of pre-vacation school events, family in town, and lots of snow have given me excuses prevented me from blogging.

My sister, her family, and my mom were all just here for a week during which time, about 60 inches of snow fell.

Amy and I skied as much as we could get my mom to babysit.

Here are some highlights.

let it begin

First we had this:

Then a little of this:

We enjoyed this:

And now we're starting this:

And this:

More to come.

the podium

Although our mountain town keeps winter alive and well until late May, our ski season is coming to a close.

Our little men finished up their ski programs this weekend and our voices are a little hoarse from our cheers.

Rufus finished his program with the Cookie Race.  Notice the foil-wrapped cookie medal around his neck.  Coach Julia was awesome and really helped lay the foundation for his future in skiing.

 

Today The Hunter and Sauce had the final race with real times and medals within each age category.

The Hunter spent the day battling the barf and diarrhea bug, but mustered up the energy to get to his race and take third place in the eight year old category.

Coach Martin named his team of boys "Princesses" and worked these boys to the bone this season.

Sauce was visibly shocked to beat out every other boy in his age group to take first place.  Coach Justin sure sharpened his skills and their team had such a blast this year.

I did get to ski with my boys a few times this year.  Here we are on top of the world last weekend.

And, my world of men - my life and pure joy...

Just so you know, this is how it all starts.  Here's our little Squirt, giggling through his first experience on skis. 

I'm sure he's picturing the turns he will carve with his brothers someday.

don't blink

or you might miss them!

Our two oldest boys are in a locals' ski program titled "Learn to Race," however, it is not an exclusive to racing program.  It is an all-mountain skill building program that exposes them to a little racing.

Last weekend, they had their first NASTAR race and my man and I skied over from our lunch break to watch them fly down the hill.

 

 

Our little Squirt is not old enough to join a formal program yet, but I'm certain when he is old enough, this is what he'll look like.

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why our long winters are worth it

About five years ago we started talking about what it would be like to be able to ski with each other again.

It has been a long season of having little ones at home with so many demands on us.  We are finally on the brink of our entire family enjoying the mountain.

Today we enjoyed one heck of a powder day with some good friends.  I'm not in the video, but my man is the last one filmed. 

We were with our friends Deb and Doug who, funnily enough, you can hear crash into each other right after they pass by me.

p.s. I'm aware that my video is too wide.  I'm thinking my new HD Fl!p is just a different format than I'm used to.

ain't no stopping them

We desperately need snow to make this snow snob go up again.

My men approach thing differently.

With a smile...

 

sucker!

My beloved and I have been looking forward to this ski season, not for the snow, fresh air, or vertical feet.

We have THREE boys in a locals' ski program this year.

TEN Saturdays.

NINE a.m. until THREE p.m.

For a homeschooling family, this is bliss.  I am with my boys all week, so it is no problem for me to ship them off to ski with excellent instructors for six hours at a time.

PLUS, this is the first year that it hasn't been an overwhelming favor to ask of a friend to watch our angelic little Squirt for a few hours so we can ski together.

OR, my beloved and our crazy friends can drag my butt all over the forbidden parts of our mountain.

May I show you the illustrated version, compliments of my crappy Blackberry phone camera?

Allrightythen.

First off, my husband informed me that the chairlift is actually farther to the left in the trees than my photo shows, but I'm lazy and didn't feel like re-doing the picture.

You get the idea.  We took Jupiter lift up and skied that little hill down.  Then, all in the name of fun, we took our skis off and hiked UP.

About 45 minutes later I joined all the in shape people Kenyon, Pete, and Deb at the top of Pinecone Ridge.

Below are the crazy lunatics that convinced me that this was going to be fun (Kenyon, Deb, and Pete).  I think Deb just likes having another girl hiking with her, but I think she's cool for keeping up with the boys.

Or, she's just happy about the nice nap she had time to take while waiting for me to hike my sorry butt up the mountain.

I realized at this point that all three of them are sales people in the business world and I felt like I got sold a bill of goods.  They are out of my league!

The BAD NEWS was that the snow conditions were sub-par.  To be blunt, it was like navigating skis through thick ice cream.  We all took a few tumbles amidst all our laughter.

The WORSE NEWS is that my posse did not know where in the heck they were going and we found ourselves in a THICK aspen forest.  See Pete disappearing into the trees?

No path, no room, no fun.

In the end, I was a sweaty, sore, frustrated, skeptical woman with broken branches sticking out of my helmet and snow packed down my pants.

We were half an hour late picking up Squirt at Jenny's house.  You can go here to see what she did to fill the time.

Now, if our little ski town would just get about two feet of fresh pow pow, I'll try it again.

With a trail map.

jack of all trades

And a master of none.

That is going to be the most recent job title on my resume when I go back to work outside the home someday in the future.

In the past week I have:

• Attempted to refinish our living room furniture via sandpaper and stain.  I solicited vague instructions through texting a friend I wish could come do the project for me I could see more and just dove into it. 
  We hosted Bible study at our house last night an I'm hoping the compliments weren't fake lies blowing smoke up my you-know-what anything but genuine.  I think it will make an improvement to our out of date living room at the very least.
• Prepared meals, cleaned up messes, taught school and shuttled kids to activities.
• Refused to accept lower than usual water pressure in our home and after a few days called the local water company to come check on our pipes. 
  After checking the meter at the street, they generously came down to our basement utility room and pointed deep into our disgusting crawl space to our "PRV" or pressure regulating valve. 
  Now, when we first moved in four years ago, I made a public declaration told my Beloved that I would N.E.V.E.R. be venturing into the dark, dirt filled crawl space for any reason under the sun.  Yet, somehow I still found myself crouching down in the dirt praying that dead people wouldn't pop up from the ground with various plumbing tools in one hand and a flashlight in the other to seek out the above-mentioned PRV and remedy our water pressure problem.
  The water guys asked, "Are you the mechanic in the family?"  I looked at my Beloved and laughed as I replied, "We don't have a mechanic in the family!"
• Prepared meals, cleaned up messes, taught school and shuttled kids to activities.
• Endured negotiations with Honda an un-named van manufacturer to get my SECOND new transmission installed under warranty after the first new one we paid $3600 for a mere three months ago started malfunctioning.
• Prepared meals, cleaned up messes, taught school and shuttled kids to activities.
• Fell behind on my "Mountain of Laundry Saturday Madness" when I took some time to chill with these girls.  It fills me up to connect with these women - and I came home feeling like I had done 1000 sit ups because my gut was sore from laughing so hard.  She may seem all sweet and innocent, but Ashley is the queen of sarcasm and one-liners.  OK, they all are just hilarious and I love them. 
  Beyond humor, they are full of wisdom and encourage me to be a better mother, wife, and friend.  They challenge me and inspire me and I wouldn't be the woman I am without them.
• Prepared meals, cleaned up messes, taught school and shuttled kids to activities.
• Endured and gritted my teeth when my Beloved's decision to get all the kids' ski gear out of the basement closets and set up for this season turned into pulling every blasted thing out of each closet, cabinet, and crevice of storage in the basement for "pruning."  Suddenly there was a pile as tall as me and just as wide of, "things to make decisions on." 
  I have no problem clearing out junk and giving away things we don't need, but when he holds up my junior high school yearbook and says, "Do you ever look at this?" I tend to object because although I may not take it out and admire my zitty brace-face, my grandchildren might want to.
  Don't erase my existence, man.
  An answer wasn't necessary when he suggested we put the bouncy seat in the give away pile.  The look on my face made him find a place for it in the back of the storage closet.
• Prepared meals, cleaned up messes, taught school and shuttled kids to activities.
• Realized that my stand alone freezer in the garage was not keeping our antelope meat completely frozen.  I procrastinated as much as I could, but then I got the appliance repair service out here to fix it so we didn't waste all that food.

These are just a few things off the top of my head, but I think I'm not alone in feeling like it is a daily challenge to keep all my plates spinning.

Simply keeping the house from looking like a tornado hit it, and making meals and cleaning up the aftermath, as well as getting the kids where they need to go is a lot.  But adding extra projects like furniture staining and water pressure repairs can really throw the balance off.

And imbalance is hard to manage.

Multi-tasking becomes a stay-at-home mom's middle FIRST name.  My days are so full and any extra request for my time, effort, or attention can sometimes be overwhelming.

I wind up feeling like I'm not really good at any one thing.

Can anyone relate?

a little time on the hill

Living in a ski town has some perks.

We can be weather snobs and only ski on the best weather days.

We can hoard the powder and get first tracks after a storm.

We can avoid the crowds and lift lines by skiing when it isn't busy.

Not to sound snobby, but I have to remind myself of these things when it is snowing on September 11th.

And June 11th.

I'm not lying, or joking, or hallucinating either.

Anyhoo, here are a few highlights from the last couple of weeks.

Hunter is in a locals' "Learn to Race" ski program and the level of instruction is amazing.  At almost eight years old, he can ski anything - and ski it well.

He gets to participate in a few races this season and just finished his first one this past weekend.  He has a highly competitive coach.  All the other teams did their best skiing down the course, but Kathleen wanted the competitive edge for her team, so he made all the boys take off their coats and race with just their shirts on top!

They raced against their age group, not each other - but he won a gold medal for this race.

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We also typically have a lot of visitors during this time of the year.  Our dear friends Gary and Christine came from South Dakota to ski for a few days.

Although our house is a 90 second drive from here, they convinced me to drive an hour to ski here.

I brought my big six year-old Sauce with me (because he is still free to ski).  We skied some tough stuff and he did so well.

Here we are on the gondola.

Snowbasin has a lot of gondolas and one tram, affectionately referred to as "the beer can."  It goes up to the top of a run called "The Olympic Men's Downhill."  It is the run just to the right of the tram in the picture below.

Note:  I didn't take this picture and when we were there, the rocked up part of the run was covered with tall moguls.

Because it is a tram, you are able to take a ride to the top and if you chicken out decide not to ski it, you can take the tram back down again.

When we got off, there was a line of adults waiting to get back on.  A woman watched Sauce throw his skis on and get ready to take off.

She nudged her husband.  He looked up and said, "HE'S gonna ski this?  Holy Sh**!"

A proud moment as a mother, I must say.

Here's a view from inside the beer can tram.

That's sauce in the bottom of this picture.

At the end of the day, Sauce begged to go to the terrain park.   I see more broken bones in our future.

 

Lastly, my sister was here visiting this weekend and we went skiing Sunday afternoon in a storm full of fresh snow.

double black diamonds

When your kids grow up in a ski town, it is a safe bet that they'll surpass any average to above average adult skier by the age of eight or nine.

We have put them in the locals' program each season since they were each five years old - consisting of seven to ten Saturdays of skiing six hours with awesome instructors.

When I picked up Hunter and Sauce from their coaches this Saturday and said a few pleasantries, I was informed that they spent most of their day on black diamond and double black diamond runs.

Yet they were still asking to do another run when I got there!

We have reached a point with the older boys where it is FUN to ski with them.  It is no longer any work to take them along and they can ski anything on the mountain amazingly well.

How fun it will be when the little boys are at the "black diamond" level too!

To black diamonds and beyond!!!!

Although ski season is not officially over yet, we always feel like it's wrapping up when the boys' ski school is over. Park City Mountain Resort has a great locals ski program for seven full Saturdays of lessons and Hunter and Sauce have become great little bombers by participating in it. Here they are on their last day.

Kenyon always takes Rufus skiing for a little while when he
drops off Hunter and Sauce
Hunter and his coach Jess

Sauce and his coach Nick

Park City moms' morning out!!!

My husband is great to me during the week to arrange a periodic workday at home, when he can get things done and manage the troops while I get out for a morning of skiing. This week my friend Christa and I planned on skiing from 9 to 12 on Wednesday, but little did we know it would be the best powder day we've had for a long time! We did lots of blue and black runs, some of the terrain was untouched and we got to ski shin deep through the powder. I would say that "Newport" (see black diamond run to the left) was our favorite run of the day because we chose to do it twice. The powder (and burning thighs!) definitely took us to our butts a couple of times, but it was fun and we laughed a lot. In the end, Christa lost a ski once and I lost a pole once, but we had a great time and I'm thankful for a good friend to "powder around" with!

Me on Newport

Christa taking on the black diamond!

At the top of our last run - still smiling!