Another Family Ski Day

Bogus had their big ski pass sale last week.  This is the time to get your season pass for the cheapest they offer it.  In the past we have purchased Joel and the boys passes for $199 and then give them for Christmas. 
This year we decided to get the family pass for $800 (cough, cough).  Now that Hailey is 12 years old she is at regular price and with Chloe turning 7 in January, we have to start paying for her.  So for 6 of us, it was a good deal.  The good thing is we can use it the rest of this year and all of next.

On Saturday we decided to take advantage of the new foot of snow that Bogus had just recieved.  Coelton took a date and went with freinds.  The rest of us headed up and began the day together.  We started out on the bunny hill and realized that Chloe needed a few refresher runs.  I volunteered to stay with her for an hour while the rest of them hit the slopes.

The run near the bunny hill had the blue paint and gates just like on the olympics.  They were having thier own olympic races.  There was an announcer and music.  It was very entertaining to watch as we stood in the chair lift line.  Kids as young as 4 year old did the race.  There were 2 big jumps in the course.  I couldn't believe the air that the skiers and riders got! 

Chloe did very well with her snow plow but she needed to practice her turns, and the bunny hill wasn't steep enough. We caught up with everyone and ventured to another lift and went to try sunshine.  She did great on the cat track and then fell apart on the hill.  After what seemed like an hour and 12 times of putting her skis back on, I was loosing my patience.  Joel stepped in and worked with her until we finally made it to the bottom.  The kids were tired and wanted to go to the car for lunch.  I said "no one is going to eat lunch until chloe can ski that hill be herself".  The guy in the chair lift line that over heard me must have thought I was a witch.

So we did it again and this time she did a great job and made it (almost) by herself.   I figure in the next 2 years or so Hailey and Chloe will be able to ski confidently anywhere on that mountain and I will have 2 great ski buddies.  I just need to be patient until then!!! 
When we were renting our gear, the man asked Hailey if she was a 1-2 or 3 level skiier.  I said level 1 and she gave me a dirty look and said she was a 2.  I reminded her that she is not an intermediate skier yet, she's still a beginner.  She still struggles a little with the black diamonds.  But is a wiz at all green and most blue runs! 
At the end of the day we found Coelton and Caden and Joel went with him and his group for an hour.  I took the girls down silverqueen to master that one with Chloe.  (Hailey was very bord).  I loved riding the chairlift with my girls.  I sat in the middle and we ate our nibs licorice.  This will always be our "special thing".  When you go skiing with mom, she always has a bag of red nibs in her pockets.  (winco bulk section, you can get a whole bag for like $1) 
Just like at church, after the sacrament mom always pulls out the gum and carefully rips 2 sticks of gum into 3 pieces and passes them down the row so everyone in the family gets a piece of gum, and she only used 2 sticks!  (I learned that trick from my mom)
The best part of the day is when we met Joel at the car and both girls wanted to STAY LONGER.  We had parked at the top,  so Hailey and I put our skis back on and raced to the bottom where Joel picked us up after driving down.
A few weeks ago Chloe came home from kindergarten and said she wanted to swim in my tub.  So I told her she could take a bath, and she insisted that she had to have her swim suit on.  So she did and an hour later she was done.  She has never taken a bath that lasted that long.  There must be something about wearing your swim suit in the tub.
We got home from skiing and I filled my tub with hot water and the girls put their swim suits on and sat in the hot tub with the jets on to relax their tired muscles.

NNU Clogging competition

The season has begun, and Hailey is excited to compete her dances.  She learned the traditional solo form this year and got a 1st place on that.  Her little team competed one of their dances called Wierd Science.  They got a 1st place on that too.  So now they are qulaified to compete at nationals at Lagoon.  One thing that bothers me with the dance company is thier costumes are not my favorite.  All the girls are dressed up like scientists or little Einsteins.  Not what I would have chosen, but Hailey seems to be having a good time with it. 

Valentines Day

This year we spent Valentines Day with my family at our family reunion in Ashton.  Since we couldn't do our valentines day tradition we did it a week later on a sunday after church.  We made a grand production of pink crepes with whip cream, cream cheese and strawberry filling.  We write the kids a letter in their valentine cards that we put by their plates. 
Notice the lovely aray of pink roses?  Those are from my Valentine.  I think he loves me! 

Our kitchen table is very small.  We got it when we moved to Boise in 1998.  It has been the center of our family togetherness for so many years, it's hard to get rid of it.  When we moved into this house I thought we would get a new one, but it just so happened that our little table matched the cabinets perfectly.  So we kept it and 5 years later we still can't trade it in.  We don't fit much food on it, and when company comes it's always crowded and a few get bumped over to the island to eat.  But this little table has become part of the family, it's brings us closely together.

Practicing for the Olympics

The Vancouver Winter Olympics has been a lot of fun to watch.  I must admit when I watch the skiers I get a little excited.  I especially like watching Lindsey Vonn. 
On Thursday I got a call from a lady in our ward who always invtes me to go skiing to Bogus with her and another lady.  I always say no and that I am too busy.  She is persistant and it finally paid off. 
She invited me to go on Friday.  I looked on my calendar. 
My popcorn committee was covering the bagging and selling for the day.  First excuse- non valid.
Joel was out of town and wouldn't be back until 7pm, we would be back by 4pm.  making dinner excuse was not valid.
And the temple was closed so that was not valid either.  Dang...no excuses.
I called a friend to see if she could pick up Chloe at Kindergarten and keep her until Caden got home and could come and get her...she said YES...Chloe excuse not valid.
I had 2 free lift tickets still for the season and needed to use them...money excuse was not valid either.
 I said YES. 
She said she would pick me up at 9am.  I was actually pretty excited to go. 
Myself and 3 other ladies in my ward went.  We got to the mountain at about 10 and had a fabulous time skiing together until we went home at 3. 
It was a beautiful day and we experienced sunshine, fog and heavy snowfall. 
Our abilities were all similar, so no one held anyone back. 
Do they let old ladies in the Olympics?  I can only dream. 

Judy Reunion 2010

Justin and Carleen were in charge this year and had a winter reunion.  It was held in Ashton at the Shootout barn lodge.  It was 3 floors and had 7 bedrooms and one room was filled with bunk beds for all the girls.  It also had a theater room and a hot tub for people 12 years and older.  We loved that rule!  We stayed in the master suite with Dad.  He climbed a ladder each night and slept in the balcony that overlooked the room.  The 5 big boys stayed in the theater room on air mattresses, they loved that.

We left Boise on Friday and met Rick and Shalean on the way.  Rick got in with us and Chloe got in with Shalean.  Our car went to Kelly Canyon ski resort for night skiing. I learned how to ski at this resort.  Some of the runs I remember were Pinto Buffalo, Slitherydee, Ernies, Dropout and face.  We met up with Justin, Casslynn, Traegan, Rhett, Ashley and Blake.  Shalean took her girls and Chloe to the cabin.   We had a really fun time skiing.  I must say for a bunch of 40 year olds we did prettty darn good.  When ya got it, ya got it!  It was just like" old times" again,  Rhett and I would go skiing together practically every weekend during the winter months.  We were all a little more cautious and didn't take the jumps so much.  It was the perfect night, warm and clear.  The snow was pretty good too. The kids stayed on skiers lane all night.  They seemed to be having a ball.  Some of them had only been once, by the end of the night they were pro's.

On Saturday we had a great day outside in the snow.  The sun was shining and it was quite warm.  Rhett took me for a ride on his new sled.  I got on behind him and thought we would take off going 100 mph through the field, like old times, chasing some poor fox or coyote.   But was I wrong.  He started going in circles and told me to keep my knees in and to hang on.  He took the first circle and I immediately started to LEAN so we wouldn't tip over.  After the second circle I figured that I wasn't supposed to worry so much about leaning, it was all about not falling off.  He put me in the front and I felt like a little kid but felt much safer there.  I tried to describe it to my friend who was interested in how our weekend was.  I finally just said, "my brother is like a professional snowmobile rider."  She was pretty impressed.

Joel even got a ride with Rhett.  He got the nick name "white Knight" because of his cool snowboarding suit.  I went snowshoeing with my sisters and Dad to the river.  It was so beautiful and the perfect day.   Joel went on a snowmobile ride with Rick, Justin and Rhett and Claudine. 

Justin put on some snowshoes and tried them out.  He took off running and acted really funny.  He made us all laugh pretty hard.

I hardly saw the kids.  Hailey and Chloe loved riding the sleds behind the 4-wheeler.  Hailey even got to ride on the snowmobile with Blake.  I was able to take Chloe out for a ride on the M-8. (sounds like I know my sleds eh) 
Coelton of course went for a run and Caden got to snowmobile with Uncle Justin.

That night we went to Big Judds.  We all ordered the big judd and the hungry heifer, which is 15 scoops of ice cream in a big bowl!    Our family ate 1-1/2 big judds.  No picture on the wall for us.  We got there early so we could all be seated.  We drove everyone away, cause we practically had the whole place to ourselves. 

Sunday was spent in the Cabin. After half the day some of us started to get a little "cabin fever".  The one negative thing about the cabin is it was very noisy.  With 25 kids running around and crying it can make you a little crazy.  We loved watching the kids misbehave and be so glad they weren't ours.  We held our own church services,  Justin and Carleen taught us the sunday school lesson, and Ashley and Caslynn taught the kids upstairs. 

Sunday was Valentines day and we made sugar cookies for everyone.  Yum!    

We watched the Amazing Race premier and a then played wacky six and scum until midnight.  I love playing games and getting everyone really fired up.   

The kids had a lot of fun playing ping pong and pool.  They also had a lot of nerf dart gun wars.  We also watched some of the winter olympics together.

We drove back to Boise on Monday after stopping in Rexburg.  We drove around and looked at some housing for Coelton.  He was more interested in the indoor track and the sport fields.
Hailey cried the whole way home and begged us to move closer to her cousins.  Wish we could.

Happy Valentines Day!

Aunt DaNae helped me with these cute Valentines for the girls to pass out to their class mates.  We put them on red paper and slipped a sucker in.

Sweethearts Dance 2010

Coelton was asked to Sweethearts by Kelli Ellingson.  He was exceptionally excited because he quite likes her.  She is the 2nd runner on the varsity girls XC team.  She is a sweet girl and they have enjoyed a few dates together.

For their "day date" they went rock climbing.  We were watching Jason and Stephanie's kids the night she picked him up, so she had lots of little eyes on her with giggles and whispers in the back ground.

They had dinner at one of the girls houses.  The mothers all made the dinner and Coelton said it was really good.  One of the Dad's even made Creme Broulee.