another ski weekend

Our time to be spent at the ski resort is upon us and I have nothing new to write because we are just skiing. Last weekend was Ali's first ski lesson of the year. I also took Ashling for her own ski lesson with me. I enjoyed the time to just be a mom to my two older girls. Sometimes it is so hard to have the time for them without dealing with a baby.

Ashling and I skied down several runs together. The whole time I had her follow me and stay right in my track. I am working on learning to parallel ski and I would do that slowly in front of her. I am always amazed by how well she follows in my tracks and she did this the whole time. (I was even more amazed when on Saturday she could parallel ski without following in my tracks.)

We enjoyed the evening together and didn't return until late. Cameron had come home, sent the baby sitter home and he was making dinner. It was fun to be the one away instead of the one at home for once.

Saturday we also spent up at Snow Valley. The whole family went up and we took turns watching Annika. I thought a lot about where we wanted to sit in the lodge while waiting and picked two tables at the back. They were across from each other and no one would be walking through this area. It was a very nice spot.

Some highlights from the day:

I bought new snow pants but didn't take any pictures. I went back to slide peak and tried the blue run down it. I hope to have more sucessful skiing in the future there.

Ali skied down little bowl three times. This was her first black diamond and she did it all by herself. She also caught air on several jumps, crashed a couple times and spent the entire day skiing. She only came inside for two 15 minute breaks all day and that was only to shove food in.

Ashling: learned to parallel ski and stayed in control all day.

Annika: Fell asleep in my arms and took a nap on the floor with her own coat bed.

Cameron: got to ski on slide peak (the double blacks) twice and helped out a lot at the lodge.

Time

Annika just had her first bottle with chocolate milk. And before you claim that I am a bad mom just know that I neither made it or gave it to her. She has two big sisters who let me know after the fact that they had given it to her. I said she could have it... as in a little drink of their milk but they went one step further and made her a bottle. I might take it away but she has been crying all afternoon and this made her tempoararily happy. And it gave me an idea that she might drink her milk if I gave it to her with chocolate all the time. (We have had problems switching over to milk... she won't switch.)

In other news my baby is now 30 1/2 inches tall and weighs 20 pounds 1 ounce. She tries to toddle all over the room. She walks 7-10 steps- then falls- and crawls the rest of the way. 'They' call her a toddler while I still call her a baby. She still nurses lots and still wants her pacifier. She still likes to be swaddled at night and refuses to eat anything that isn't soft or pasta. But I know I have almost run out of time with my baby. She will soon venture all the way over to toddlerhood and leave that swaddle blanket behind.

Even as I mourn the loss of the baby I am excited for the things to come. I am excited for the opportunity for some one on one time with Ashling, skiing. I know that Annika's turn will be here before I know it. I am excited to take Ali to get her ear's pierced in the near future. I am excited for time spent with my kids without all the necessary baby luggage. I am excited to buy a real purse and leave the diaper bag behind. Sometimes I want time to stand still while I am really wishing away the hard years.

Waiting to ski

We had a baby sitter and were very excited for what might be an epic ski day. Everything was ready early and we were just waiting to go.

The drive up to snow valley. The berms were bigger than our car. The bummer was that snow valley was burried under 6 feet of snow that they just didn't have a handle on. They only had the beginner runs on the lower mountain open for the first part of the day. We made the best of it by skiing together and the guys went off lots of jumps. Cameron hiked up to the top and also helped try and get the lifts open. I made a few new friends in line. I was worried about rioting but we are not Mountain High and nothing happened.

Finally after a quick lunch the lift was open and we got to go the top. I enjoyed my run down very much. Probably I set a new record of top to bottom and I especially skied well on Mambo. The lines were too long though and we ended up skiing on the the lower mountain until the end of the day. I was disappointed but the beauty of the day made it all worth it. And the snow will still be here for a long time to come.

Do you see the chairs in the background that they had to dig down to get to. No wonder it took so long to get the lifts running!

A view of the mountain and another view of the big dig down.

The Day After

We woke up and the sky looked like this.... Everything was white or blue.... that is our six foot chain link fence almost completely burried with snow.

I can not believe the colors in this picture.

I can hardly believe I live in a place where it can look like this.

And this is all part of my yard. Life is good!

The view off our deck.

The Convoy

these are the alerts for the highway 18 closure to Big Bear. For those of you who don't know Big Bear is completely snowed in. They are a large town of about 40,000 people. They can not get in or out because of snow. I found the Alerts funny and I had to post them to save for posterity. I guess it really was a great storm.

One of the funniest things I saw was cars driving up to the big closure and trying to decide what to do. They had driven 35 minutes and somehow expected they were going to get to Big Bear. Another thought.... I guess at the minimum you should stock up before the storm and plan on not having food for a few days after a major storm. Good thing I know about food storage and 72 hour kits.

BTW: read this in reverse order for the full effect...

Convoy has reached the Big Bear Dam

06:37 PM
Sat 1/23

The berms will be put back in place at Snow Valley and Big Bear Dam immediately after the convoy gets through.

06:36 PM
Sat 1/23

The convoy will come back {down?} at 0730 hours.

06:22 PM
Sat 1/23

From: 101-S3
To :CHP Dispatch

Big Bear SO has got the handle and taking the lead on this escort to Big Bear.

06:14 PM
Sat 1/23

From: 101-S3
To :CHP Dispatch

Advise Big Bear SO that the convoy is at Snow Valley.

06:10 PM
Sat 1/23

06:07 PM
Sat 1/23

From: ROTW Thread

From: handygirl Sent: Saturday, January 23, 2010 06:03 PM A few minutes ago, one of the convoy trucks was stuck at the 330/18 interchange and had to get pulled by a CalTrans truck from the front and pushed by CHP from the back. They got him back on the road. Hope they get up to Big Bear! BTW, that was with chains on!

05:59 PM
Sat 1/23

From: RS Transcriber

http://rimoftheworld.net/gallery/image/12127 ~~ http://rimoftheworld.net/gallery/image/12128 ~~ http://rimoftheworld.net/gallery/image/12129

05:56 PM
Sat 1/23

From: 101-S3
To :CHP Dispatch

The Convoy is now in Arrowbear.

05:48 PM
Sat 1/23

From: 101-S3
To :CHP Dispatch

Hold all traffic. No traffic out of Snow Valley. The convoy is moving again.

05:37 PM
Sat 1/23

From: 101-S3
To :CHP Dispatch

The convoy is temporarily stuck on the ice in Running Springs. We'll get this thing going in a bit.

05:23 PM
Sat 1/23

From: ROTW Thread

From: Coral Sent: Saturday, January 23, 2010 03:56 PM For your information. This was just released. Caltrans and CHP will be leading a convoy of trucks up 330 to 18 to deliver food, Red Cross supplies and fuel to the Big Bear Area.

05:21 PM
Sat 1/23

From: 101-21
To :CHP Dispatch

We still have people showing up at the closure trying to get to Big Bear via the 18 at Snow Valley. I'm not sure where they are getting through, but we need to make sure all units on the mountain know about the closure.

Snowfall 2010

We woke up this morning to a lot more snow. Cameron cleared the driveway last night before we went to bed. This is the snow that fell after the driveway was clear. We had to put the cars outside because they were flooding the garage with water. Poor cars! I am not sure they will ever be the same. Usually they sleep so warm in the garage.


I wanted to go down the hill and get a brief relief from the inside of my four walls. There is at least a foot or more snow on the road. I am not sure I will be getting to go anywhere for days. The good news is that we still have power!

Snow Angel

Cameron kept telling me we should bundle Annika up and go on a walk. But with the snow I was quite skeptical. It is one thing when there is snow on the ground but another when there is practically a blizzard outside. So I wasn't planning on doing it. Annika started fussing and wouldn't stop no matter what. I finally decided to dress her up and hopefully the cold would shock her into a better mood. She helped me get all her clothes on and didn't complain once about being dressed. Here she is crawling around in the snow. She loved it.

Cameron is so happy he has another snow bunny!

He couldn't keep her in his lap because she wanted to play in it. The cold didn't bother her a bit!

Ali in her new jacket! She loves the fur on it!
When I brought her in she cried. She loves the snow and would like to play in it more. Maybe when it stops snowing I will let her.

A do nothing day

On my adgenda for today:

Snuggle on the couch with my girls.

Play games with the girls.

Read because I can.

Watch Lost with Cameron.

Take a nap.

Perhaps write a letter.

I have no real plans for today. It is raining and I have been singing about Noah's flood and the one we might have. It will snow later and the wind is blowing. The power may go out. But I have lots of left over pasta in the fridge and cake to eat. Bring on the storm!

Annika at 12 months

Annika is an active 12 month old. She is very happy most of the time. She loves to play with her toys and will spend time with each one during the day. She loves books especially with dogs in them. She talks about each page and enjoys turning the page. She likes her play pen and will ask to go in there to play with the special toys we keep in there. When she is tired she will want to get out but she will play quietly for 1/2 hour or 45 minutes.

She loves to climb the stairs and go back down them. She is totally capable of going down them and does so quickly. She loves to go downstairs when her sisters are down there and attack the barbie house. She rearranges everything similar to what a hurricane would do. In fact they call her Hurricane Annika.

She is beginning to realize that there is an outdoor world and wishes she could spend more time out in it. Our yard is not kid friendly and it is too cold anyways. She loves her daddy and he will take her outside at the most crazy times. (Like when it is raining or snowing and she has barefeet and a tee-shirt on.) But she doesn't mind and just cuddles up next to daddy and looks at the tall, tall trees.

Annika says a feet words, she says ma ma, da da, dog, diaper, ba ba, Ahhh iii. I bet she will be learning lots of new things in the next month as she makes lots of other sounds.

She is on the verge of walking. She has taken steps and is standing up on her own. She tries to walk and has fallen a lot. She loves to give kisses and will give anyone I ask her to a kiss. She loves to point at things like the pictures on the wall. She laughs at things she thinks are silly and tries to get her sisters to laugh with her.

She likes to go places and see new things but would appreciate being back in time for nap and bedtime as she still only likes her bed to sleep in. She has transitioned over to taking only one nap a day and it has been a little difficult to stetch it out into a long enough nap.

We love Annika and are happy to have her in our home. She is a joy to each one of us and we can't imagine life without her.

Happy 1st Birthday Annika

Annika turned 1 today. She woke up and we sang to her. She loves music so it was a good start to the morning. Daddy had to volunteer today at Snow Valley so he wasn't home for most of the day. The girls gave her a couple of presents in the morning. We gave her the dress she is wearing in the pictures and a book that has lots of pull tabs. The dress was to wear to church so she could feel pretty and the farm book was to entertain her during Stake Conference.

I got the girls dressed and ready and we went to Stake Conference. I am grateful for grandparents who helped out during the whole meeting or I would have never made it through alive. The older girls were great and patiently played with the things I brought for them.

After church Annika prepared for her party by getting some needed beauty sleep. I made pasta for dinner. I made macaroni and cheese (the hard way,) fetticine, and spagetti and meatballs. We also had saled and breadsticks. For a drink we served apple juice and for the adventurous we had italian pina colada sodas.

I had to wake the beauty princess for her sleep with a kiss in order for her to greet her party guests after a 2 1/2 hour nap, (that is the longest nap she has taken in a very long time.) She was very excited and seemed to know that it was her special day. She loves her macaroni and cheese and enjoyed her sisters feeding it to her.

This picture got put in out of order and I don't know how to place it in the right spot. So here is the partaking of the cake. She enjoyed her sugar cookie that was on top of the cake very much and made a royal mess which we allowed our dog to have the pleasure of cleaning up.

I have never seen a one year old so excited about presents. At Christmas she was hardly interested and I opened every present for her. I wasn't excited for that to happen again. But instead she was very interested in opening every one. She would look at it and want to play with it right then and there. She was thrilled with her special day.

Annika received some very nice presents. Chalon's family gave her a ball pounder and a teddy bear. Erin's family gave her the Foot book, the guy from Dr. Seuss, and a nice pair of sandles for the summer. Marion and Jo gave her a shape sorter elephant that is such a fun toy and a new shorts and tee shirt outfit. Grandma Sue and Papa gave Annika a beautiful dress, tights and sandles plus a hair clip. We got her a little farm animal magnet set, some clothes and a couple books. We appreciated having everyone there for the party.

d

Haiti

Glad to belong to a church where they are so prepared to help out in any and all emergencies.

Here is a link to a news article.

It is amazing what can be done when you are already prepared for a disaster. But even with as prepared as they are it still takes a few days to get any help. Once again a reminder to have at least a 72 hour kit prepared and ready for a disaster.

My favorite Toy

I thought I should show Annika with her puppy. She loves all dogs and for Christmas the girls gave her this little dog. It is some sort of Vtech toy and I think it is very cool It has a bone that works like a simple remote control. It dances, sings, talks about its body parts and will follow you if you hold its bone. The bone will also make the thing sing and dance. When she touches a part of the dog then it says what that part is called. We keep the dog in our kitchen where the floor is right. Annika spend more time with it than almost any other toy and the girls are very excited to play with it too. I like that while I am cooking dinner or doing the dishes she is occupied and where I can see her. (I also think that Rice O roni will keep an 11 month old occupied for forever. But when she was tired of that she went right back to the toy.)

I recommend this as a must have for any child ages 1-2 years old. I managed to find it at Walmart. I NEVER shop there but this time I am glad I decided to branch out in search of new quality toys for Annika.

New looks!

After another morning of Ashling screaming as I brushed her hair, nobody wanting to find any elastics for me to put hair into and Ali begging me to let her keep her hair down I decided it was time to visit the hair salon. After school we went straight there. We sat down with the style book and looked through it. It didn't take Ashling long to decide what she wanted. She pointed out the style and then hurried over to sit in the chair.

Ali took a little longer. She really wanted to cut her hair very very short. I was not okay with that and I knew that Cameron would K-I-L-L me if I chose to let her. After some debate we settled on a style and she was excited to get her hair to flip out instead of in.

For the first time the girls loved the whole experience. They enjoyed having their hair blow dryed and they liked how it looked. I caught them both in the mirror all evening. This morning they both wanted me to re-do it and there was no fighting, crying or complaining. I think the hair cut was a success!

Almost walking

I forgot to do a post for 11 months old. I think it was pretty great that I got all the other posts in there but with Christmas planning it just didn't happen. Don't worry there will be something for her birthday shortly. While you are waiting to hear what is new in Annika's life here is a sneak peak. She is walking all over with her walker. She thinks it is great fun and pushes this thing all over. I guess it is a good thing that Santa thought to bring it for her. Annika is starting to stand up in the middle of the floor and has taken one step a couple of times but then she falls down. I don't mind if it is a long time until she walks but I think she has other ideas.

By the way... I took these pictures after a nice morning of skiing with Ali. Cameron stayed home and worked while Ashling played and Annika napped. Don't I have a great husband? I just thought I would brag a little bit.

The Sunrise

The sunrises have been beautiful lately as well as the sunsets. Cameron came and got me off the treadmill one morning to look at one out on the deck. I was glad that I was out of bed when I saw it. Like the beautiful sunrises 2010 looks much better than 2009 did and I am very grateful for that.

San Antonio Falls

Cameron wanted to go to San Antonio falls all during the whole vacation. Saturday we were supposed to tile and I was supposed to do laundry but I didn't feel like it. I wanted to go do something fun for the last day before real life began. (Sunday church started at 9:00 am.) So we decided to go out to San Antonio Falls. It was a short hike up a rode to the falls. To actually get to the bottom of the falls you had to negotiate a little trail that was on the side of a steep shoot. It wasn't too bad and after we held the girls hands they were willing to cross. On the way back they didn't even need our help. There wasn't that much water coming off them and it was much warmer than we expected. It bordered on being hot. The girls enjoyed taking their shoes off and putting them in the icy water and Annika enjoyed touching the water with her finger.

We also drove up to the ski resort, (Mount Baldy) to see it. I was unimpressed. I am not sure I would be willing to park my car and walk through their many levels of parking with my skis. Then put my skis on and ride a lift up to who knows where to ski. But Cameron said there is good steep terrain so he might be willing.

Holidays in Review

Saturday December 26th: Cameron, Chalon, Todd, Wade and I went skiing at Snow Valley. It was fun to ski with them and it was probably my best day skiing ever. I felt like they all pushed me to ski faster and I had a lot of fun. The girls enjoyed the time with their cousins at Grandma Sue and Pa Pa's house. Melissa was a great aunt and helped out even though we never asked her if she wanted to. Thanks Melissa!

Sunday: I got some flu bug and spent the day in bed. I haven't had to do that in a long time. I slept most of the day. Ali and Ashling went to church with Grandma and Cameron stayed home to take care of me.

Monday: We worked on projects around the house. We installed baby locks and started remodeling our master bathroom. On the list is new tile (we have had it for a long time but haven't had the energy to replace it.) and refurbishing and staining the bathroom cabinent.

Tuesday: We went skiing in the morning. The whole family went up and we took turns watching Annika and skiing with the kids. The snow was great and the kids are great at skiing. Ali and I enjoyed racing together. Tuesday afternoon we got a babysitter and went to the temple with Cameron's extended family. It was great to all be together and we are going to make this a family tradition to go each time we get together. After the temple we went to dinner and enjoyed some more time together.

Wednesday: Cameron went skiing with Wade in the morning. Then we worked on the bathroom remodel a little more. Later the boys went to see Avatar and the girls got together to let the kids play. We made Melissa a little book with pictures of the cousins for the baby. There were some unfortunate events at dinner time that caused us to wonder if all the food for the rest of the time together would be undercooked.

Thursday: The girls met for breakfast in the morning. We then went and got pedicures and manicures. We shopped for a while and then retured home. We met for dinner at Grandma Sue's and enjoyed a relaxing New Year's Eve. We played some Wii, played some card games and watched a movie with the kids. I like playing the Guitar Hero and think I need to get my own Wii in the future. The boys and the missionaries played a lot of ping pong. Most of the kids stayed up until midnight except for the little ones. I don't know if I will let that happen again next year but we will see. Everyone slept at Grandma's house except for Cameron, Annika and I. We went home to our own beds since we live so close.

Friday: Annika did not sleep in but the girls slept until after 9:00. It was their first time staying up that late and I am proud that they could sleep in so much. We had cinnamon rolls for breakfast, played cards and then played Settlers of Cataan. It was a relaxing day. I took Annika home for a nap in the afternoon while the kids had marshmellow gun wars in the street in front of Grandma Sue's. Then we had Wade, Melissa, Ellie, Mike and Sue over for a last dinner before they went home.

If you wonder why I am tired it is because we did all this stuff in a week. It was a fun vacation with lots of wonderful things for everyone. I am glad because the cousins played well together and Ali and Ashling loved it. I am a little relieved today to be sitting in the house by myself but the laundry is going to keep me busy for a month!

Friday:

Thu

Big Changes

I saw a sign dicussing the big changes brought in the 2000 decade. At first I thought it was a little odd as I couldn't think of what had changed so much. But I know life has changed a lot in the past ten years and it made me think of changes to our little family. When we filled out the census in the year 2000 it was Cameron and I. We had been married for four months and lived in a little apartment in Provo. We made somewhere around 10,000 dollars together the previous year. We did not have any kids. We only had high school diplomas. I was a student and he was a construction worker who was attending school part time. I worked at a laundry mat.

Fast forward to today. Now we are still together. (Hey in some ways that in of itself is a pretty big miracle.) We live in a nice house that we hope to purchase later this year. We make much more than 10,000 dollars. We added 3 children to our family. We both have BS degrees from Brigham Young University. He is a Civil Engineer and I stay home and try to create a home for us to live in. I guess it has been a decade of change for us.

I am grateful for my beautiful family, for our college degrees, (even if we are still paying for them,) and I am glad to be making more than I was at the beginning of the year 2000. If only our next 10 years can go so well. (although I doubt our family will grow that much in this decade. We will have to wait for grandkids and sons-in-laws for that.)