Ski Freedom

We are getting there!  The kids are skiing independently and even riding lifts on their own!  It's been a long six years, but we are getting to the sweet spot.  Both kids LOVE to ski and are up for it almost any time.

Hazen had Owen, the class hippo, visiting again, so we decided to take him skiing, too.  It was great!  I don't think he fell once the whole time he had Owen in his jacket.

Hazen is getting wherever he needs to go and is learning how to do more french fries instead of pizza turns.

 

Cally is doing lots of parallel turns and is doing an after school ski program at Cochran's once a week.

The most exciting news is that they are riding lifts on their own!?!?!?!?  This is so exciting because it means I can take them skiing on my own when John has to work (which is a lot this winter).  

Whatever works, right?  They like to ski and we all have fun together.... even when the conditions go downhill (like they did right before Christmas)

Six!

Birthday's were a big deal when I was a kid.  But, I didn't have a birthday near any other major holidays, so it was sort of a good excuse to make a big deal about a child.  I'm committed to making birthdays a big deal for my kids.  Especially if one of my kids has a birthday three days before a major holiday.

 

This year, we decided to keep it small.  Cally invited five of her friends over (as well as her brother and a sibling on one of her friends).  They ranged from some of her oldest friends (Isaac, Piper, and Thompson) to a few of her Poker Hill friends from last year who go to Jericho Elementary School (Celine and Blake)

I offered to do the gingerbread house making thing again.  I did it when she was three and now she was turning six.  I figured it would be a lot of work upfront, but I wouldn't need to do much of anything once the kids arrived.

I was right about both of those assumptions.  I baked and assembled seven ginger bread houses (yes, the dog ate one of them the night before?!?!?).  It took an estimated five hours to make the dough, cut the dough, cook it, and assemble the houses.

But I'm not complaining because it was totally worth it!  Everyone had fun.  Even the three year olds who had to make their houses out of graham crackers.

Cally had a ball with her friends.

And since I was making gingerbread houses and then cupcakes the following day, I signed John up for baking the special birthday cake.  He made a fabulous buttermilk chocolate cake with vanilla icing infused with fresh strawberries!  And this is from a guy who almost NEVER bakes. 

 

John says I have working mother guilt and that is why I go overboard on Cally's birthday.  That's probably very true.  But it's also very true that my own mother set the bar pretty high with her honoring of her children on the anniversary of the day they entered the world.

Baking Olaf cupcakes, gingerbread houses and organizing all of that makes me happy. 

Because this girl makes me so happy!  She's one amazing six year old.  Full of curiosity, spunk, enthusiasm, humor, and thoughtfulness.  I love her to the moon and back.

While I'm not likely to repeat this cooking extravaganza every year, I'd do whatever it takes to make this girl feel as special as she really is on her birthday!  And look how far we've come!

Thanks to everyone who made Cally's birthday so special.  Especially, Uncle Scotty who came to hang out with a bunch of crazy kids for the afternoon.

Polar Express

There are so many different ways to indulge children at this time of year.  There is the Nutcracker at the Flynn, a play about toys coming to life at UVM, the Polar Express and more.  None of these events are free, so I asked the kids which special treat they would like this year.  Cal got to go on the Polar Express last year at the last minute, so I thought she'd rather go to the Nutcracker and figured John and Hazen could go do the Polar Express.  

However, Cal wanted nothing to do with doing something without Hazen.  She insisted that whatever they do, they do it together.  And you guessed it, Hazen really wanted to do the Polar Express.

Getting tickets to the Burlington Polar Express is next to impossible.  You either have to volunteer as an elf a year in advance or enter a lottery which involves sitting online at exactly 4pm on an afternoon in October only to find that the website crashed and only the luckiest actually get the golden tickets.

We had heard there was a Polar Express in White River Junction-- an hour and a half drive away.  They aren't giving these tickets away, but you can buy tickets less that a few weeks in advance.  

So we went for it.  John thought I was insane and said there would be no way he'd spend a day driving a car to go on a train.

It was a haul..... but it was so, so sweet to see how happy the kids were to be on the adventure:

It really was a magical experience.  The kids drank hot cocoa, ate cookies, hugged Santa, and got a bell.  Sure, there are a lot of other more productive ways I could have spent my day, but seeing the joy and wonder in the kids was more than worth it.  And John even admitted he was sad he didn't get to come. 

Snow, Snow, Hello Snow!

I love winter.  I love playing in the snow.  After working full time as a ski patroller and living in the big mountains for years, I wondered how I would take to being tied down by a full time indoor job as a teacher.  But then it occurred to me....... teachers get snow days.  When it really, really snows and the skiing is the best, we get snow days!  As it turns out, teachers do get a bunch of snow days, but they are often because of ice or frigid temperatures or flooding and not epic powder days. You end up making up days that were never really about playing in the snow.  However, every once in a while, we get that perfect storm. 

 

Last week was one of those weeks.  The snow started falling on Tuesday night.  By Wednesday morning, there was a heavy layer of snow.  Not epic powder, but heavy snow that made driving difficult and blanketed the mountains with the base it so needed. Throughout Wednesday, the snow kept coming down and it continued until Saturday morning. In total, the mountains got almost 30 inches of snow!

Now that Cally is in school, she too gets the snow days that I get.  This means that I don't have the freedom to ski all that I want, but it means that I get to share the fun with these two shredders!

And part of being a shredder is carrying your own skis to the mountain (and wearing a faboo one piece).

Snow days also mean putting in some hard time building snow castles and sledding.  But, if you play your cards right, it also means getting out for a dog romp and fresh tracks. 

I'll take surprise snow "break" any time.  Especially if I can spend some quality time with my family and make some fun turns!

Thankful

There is so much for us to be thankful for and this thanksgiving.  The kids had the entire week off from school.  John and I had to work on Monday, but were otherwise free to play. We were fortunate to have both friends and family visit during the week of Thanksgiving.

Deb was one of my favorite friends when I was in graduate school in Missoula. She and Gray moved to Missoula together (sweethearts from college) and got married the year after I left.  We haven't been in great touch, but Deb got in touch because their family wanted to come scout out Vermont as a potential place to move.  It turns out, they have children almost the exact same ages as ours and in their short visit, they became fast friends. 

Within hours of the Davidson crew rolling out of town, Grandma and Bumpa drove into town.  They came armed and ready for lots of action (and just in time before a big snow storm came through).

Super Grandma read books, built a ginger bread house, painted toe nails and even took the kids on a hike (with Bumpa), giving John and me some time to catch up on grading and painting windows.

The grandparents even took care of the kids so John and I could get out for a rare lovely morning skin and ski date on Sterling Mountain on Thanksgiving morning.  Sadly, 100 yards from the top of the mountain, John's ski's got caught in some heavy now and pitched him forward. He fell on his shoulder and immediately knew he had broken his clavicle.  The mountain was not open, so there was no ski patrol to call.  He asked me to hold his sunglasses and said he'd be fine skiing himself down.  He grit his teeth and made it down flawlessly, but upon trying to cross a water bar he fell again.

A quick trip to the hospital with Bumpa later, the evidence was clear:

Fortunately, Grandma was able to "pinch hit" with preparing the big meal while John and Bumpa were at the hospital.  But, even a broken clavicle can't keep a good man down.

 

John did manage to get out of feast prep and clean up, but he refused to miss a day of sledding the following day:

And because we are crazy, we even braved Church Street in Burlington on Black Friday to see the lighting of the Christmas tree and a very funny performance of "Twas the Night Before Christmas".  It was cold and crowded, but this little reindeer was in heaven!

While the snow didn't really stick around.  It stayed long enough for the kids to make their first snowman on their own.  He had a scallion for a nose and a pig hat, but we are so thankful to have them working together, laughing and loving each other.

We are also thankful for a great surgeon who squeezed John into his schedule less than a week after the accident to repair his broken collar bone.  Now John is on the road to recovery with seven screws and a plate.  Onward and upward. The sweet nurses hear that we have two kids, so they sent us home with all sorts of doctor "stuff" so the kids could play surgeon.

And finally, we are thankful for a new heating system downstairs.  Good bye forced hot air, particulates floating around our house and cold mornings.  Hello hot water radiators on a timer that forced us to get rid of a little clutter.