My friend Jason (we work together in my church's youth program) invited me to go skiing with him and another friend, Allen. I've been a few times and my schedule was flexible that day, so I took a last minute ski trip.
I'm not a good skier, but it was fun. I can do green runs easily and blue runs only if they're easy. Jason and Allen much more experienced so I spent much of the day alone but they were good sports and did a few blue runs with me.
That's me doing the wedge. Don't quite have the fine control I want yet and I have a fear that kicks up when I get to a certain speed (same problem when I tried snowboarding/skiing as a teen)... Not sure that I'll ever put in the money and time investment to get better, but it's fun.
A new favorite activity for these hooligans is to make horse food for their hobby horses. They get chalk and grate it on a tennis racket, collect the chalk dust, put it in a bucket, and feed it to their horses. It can keep them entertained for a good long while.
Work has been great for me lately, and the girls are really good about me working. I work like 80% of my hours at home, and about once a week I have a meeting (lots of times it's at my house with the girls) and I occasionally have to stop by the office. The office is a small little room with a file cabinet, desk, and printer in the industrial part of town. I only go there to file or print stuff out. The girls are troopers when we go to the office and they both plop down on the floor and draw some pictures.
I have a sad story. So, last fall my landlord said he wanted to paint the back of the house, so I didn't plant a fall garden since it's right up against the back of the house (we can plant all year long here in CA) so that he could take care of the painting. I followed up with him a few times about when he was going to get it done, but he just kept putting it off. So, after the new year, I decided if I just sat around and waited for him, I would be missing out on another great planting season, so I just went ahead and prepped and planted my veggies. Onions, arugula, spinach, radishes, kale, and potatoes. About 2 weeks after my veggies sprouted, my landlord decided it was now time to paint the back of the house. I was not a happy camper. He said he would be careful, but there's only so much you can do. Anyways, there was a full day of them being covered/smashed by a tarp so he could power wash the back of the house and then 2 days later another full day of painting. His team of painters were not so careful. I actually went out and tried to explain to them about how they need to be careful, etc.... but there's only so much I could do not able to speak their language, not owning the house, and not being their boss. So I just went inside and cried because I knew they were stepping all over my precious little veggies. It was a sad day.
But, believe it or not, most of them seem to have recovered pretty well! My onions popped back up along with my potatoes and the leafy greens aren't doing too shabby either, considering. I thought I was going to have to scrap the whole thing. Thank goodness not! They're all doing great now. It's incredible because they were in quite a sad state for a while.
This is what it's looking like now! The arugula got hit the hardest, but everything else is doing great!
This year our mountains have had tons of snow. Good thing because we needed it for the water, and also because we were bummed we couldn't go sledding last year. So this year we took a trip to the mountains.
Beautiful waterfall outside of Yosemite National Park.
Our plan was to tube at Badger Ski Pass, right outside of Yosemite Valley. Unfortunately, their tubing run was booked out for the day (whoops, probably should have called ahead), so we had to get creative. Somehow I convinced Heidi to let us rent skis instead. For all of us. :-D
Admittedly, this wasn't the ideal situation. I was the only one who had skied at all, which meant I had to teach Heidi while we both somehow kept an eye on the girls, who were also trying to figure out skis at the same time. (Of course I was too cheap to even consider signing them up for a class).
Miriam hated the idea for a long time until she saw Evette do a few runs, then she was excited to ski between our legs.
"Ski me!! Ski me!!!"
Evette was a champ. Heidi and I took turns helping her down the bunny hill. It was a little painful for everyone, but she had fun.
I went on a few solo runs, but after an hour or so we decided that was about all we could do without further adult support, so we took off a bit early, hoping to find a hill in the woods we could sled on. Thankfully we did find one only a half mile or so from the ski resort. Lots of photos and videos for your viewing pleasure...
Her boots were... inadequate. Rainboots, it turns out, are only waterproof from the bottom - and that matters.
After sledding for a while we went to Yosemite Valley itself. Words like "stunning" and "breathtaking" only scratch the surface. Photos are a weak representation. Go yourself.
We then drove around in the Valley for a while. We didn't have a ton of time so we didn't get out and do any of the hikes, so we'll definitely need to go back.
Turns out there's this phenomena where the sunset hits a waterfall just right to create what's known as the firefall (google image results), and we happened to be in the park when the conditions were "just right." Note that we didn't really care, but I swear half of Northern California did. As a result, traffic in Yosemite was a nightmare. So bad that I got out and walked along the highway with the girls while Heidi drove a snail's pace.
My best shot of the firefall.
And finally, this exhausted crew enjoyed some well-earned pizza on the way home.
We headed up into the city for the Chinese New Year parade with some friends and their neighbors. We went last year and had a blast and this year did not disappoint either.
Kids love taking the train
We had a great spot near the beginning and near a corner so we could see a lot of the action.
We got some pizza to eat while waiting.
So many fun dragons! Evette loved them. Miriam hated them for a good long time. Lots of screaming and crying at first.
Since we had 6 kids in one spot, a lot of the dragons came right up by us and got right in our faces, which every loved but Miriam, poor thing.
It was fun to see Evette watching and loving everything. Lots of dancing and clapping and "look at that!"
Miriam did better as time went on and she even touched the last dragon that stopped by, so that was good progress!!
