St Patrick's Day

St Patrick's Day brought a little green man who colored our milk green and make our eggs green too. He also left a mess of clovers all over our table. I dressed all the kids up in green four leaf clover shirts and then added green clovers to their faces for fun! Here are the few pictures I took to remember the day. I do like green on my girls.

Daffodils, tomatoes, sunflowers, and raspberry plants

These pictures are courtesy of my blog from March 2008. I think it must have snowed a whole lot less that year...

I am thinking about Spring today. The sun is out and it is above freezing. Even the wind has stopped. I think it is about 47 degrees but the sun feels warm. I went on a walk this morning and I didn't wear a coat or snow boots. I saw some dafodils that were poking their way up on the south facing slopes. I thought I would take some pictures so that you can see what my yard looks like while I am waiting for spring.

This is the bare patches of dirt that exist mainly under trees where not as much snow feel. This is the most dirt I have seen in my backyard since January.

This is my six foot tall fence that I can still easily hop over but can not open.

While most of my yard is burried in snow I am thinking about spring. I am thinking about what I will plant in my garden. I have a list. For veges: lettuce, carrots, peas, and onions are going to go in as soon as I get the snow off my garden. Maybe we will need to shovel it. I think I am going to start pumpkins and zuccinni inside. I will be planting tomatoes and peppers in pots on the deck where the sun can get them all year. I think I will try an herb basket and grow cilantro inside. We are also going to plant raspberries along one of our fences. Hopefully they will grow well.

As far as flowers go I am still thinking. I think I will grow the big tall sunflowers against my house. I love those flowers. I am thinking about growing a sunflower tent but I don't know if I really will or not. I need some flowers in pots for on my deck. Does anybody have any ideas? I want a flower that will tolerate heat and keep bloomin over and over again all year long. I like pink, yellow, orange and red flowers. I love the shasta daisy's but so do the gophers that live in my yard. (This will be the year that they leave... I hope.) I also love lilies and have some planted in my yard. There are cosmos that will come up too.

I have my eye on a beautiful dogwood tree too. I guess we will see what the budget says and how much I actually get to plant. For now I am thinking, planning and dreaming of spring.

Big Bowl

The run I skied down is the one in the middle that is steep. It doesn't look really steep in this picture but I promise it is.

I took Ali skiing by herself on Wednesday. I picked her up directly after lunch from school and we headed up to the mountain. Ali is an excellent skier and each time I see her I am impressed as she gets better and better. She is faster and more adventurous then I will probably ever be.

She decided that my goal for the day would be to go down Big Bowl (a long steep black diamond that at the beginning of the season scared me to death.) She skied in front of me and showed me the way down the hill and waited patiently at the bottom when it took me longer to go. We also skied down another new black diamond called surprise run. There she was so far ahead of me that she sat down and waited for me at the bottom.

I did it! I skied down big Bowl which I never thought I would actually be willing to ski down. It was fun and I enjoyed it! My goal for the year skiing was fulfilled!

It was fun to watch her skiing all day. She is really quite good. She loved being in charge and deciding where we would go skiing. We skied down several black diamonds and the snow was perfect. It was a great day to be skiing! We had a blast all day and were disappointed to see the lifts were closed.

My Little Girls

Cameron stayed home sick on Wednesday. I didn't stay home at all. First I went to the dentist and followed that with the doctor. Then I picked Ali up and took her skiing. Cameron stayed home with the little ones and they took a nap. He enjoyed taking some pictures of the girls too.

Two Trees Trail

We woke up early, Saturday morning and decided that we should go hiking in the morning and then do a little shopping. We went out to Riverside where there are some hills to go hiking in.

In the distance you can see downtown Riverside.

There were some wild flowers growing and everything was green and wet, thanks to El Nino.

Annika really liked to walk around. I took her down the trail and she hiked and loved it. She never wanted to stop hiking. She really is Cameron's child. Our other girls did great on their first hike of the year. As winter is wrapping up we will enjoy hiking a lot more together!

Farewell to Singing Time

I was released today. I was surprised because I was finally comfortable with my calling. I finally enjoyed singing time and didn't mind that I can hardly keep the beat and that often I find myself leading something wrong. I enjoyed the time with the kids and I enjoyed listening to them sing. I was surprised to find that I could do the calling even without an inch of musical talent in my entire body. I was surprised to find that it was a good match for me. I was surprised to find that I even learned to enjoy it.

Now I am Primary Secretary. We will see what I think of that after a while...

Snow Valley Fridays

Cameron did not have work today as it was another furlough Friday! I wish these Fridays without pay would end but we sure do have fun without them.

All season long we have been skiing on Fridays. Ali has a class and I have been teaching Ashling how to ski. It is wonderful to see the whole community up on the mountain and to ski with friends. We planned to go up early due to Ali not needing to be at school very badly on Friday. We headed up right after we picked Ashling up at preschool and dropped Annika off at Grandma's. Ashling ate her corn dog in the parking lot before we started. This is Ali with her helmet on... isn't she cute?
Ali and Ashling at the top of Chair one

Cameron at the top of Chair 1. I really liked his long hair hanging over his goggles. He looks great!

Family picture. Can't wait until Annika is up here too!

One run Ali wanted to lead Ashling down the mountain. Ashling is the best follower when skiing ever! She followed Ali wherever she wanted to go and they both loved it. It was very cute to watch.

Right after this picture Ashling crashed into me jumping over my skis and head diving into the ground. We thought it was funny but she didn't.

The big accomplishment for me was that I finally skied down a black diamond. My goal for this year has been to ski down Little Bowl. And I did. I was ready and wasn't even scared. I didn't ski it with any sort of grace but I never fell and never cried so I consider it a big accomplishment. I actually skied down it 3 times and would have done more but there were other places to be skied. I feel like I accomplished my ski goals for this year but I still home we will get to ski a few more times before Spring comes.

This is my neice, DD. Cameron's sister and family met us up there and we skied with them all day. I loved spending time with my neices and seeing them ski. I ended up getting to keep them and ski with them for a couple of hours by myself.

This is the big "T". She is a dare devil skiier who loves jumps and going on steep things.

Here is Cam's sister and little W. She sure was a trooper going wherever we wanted her to even when it wasn't easy.

As soon as they got there we headed back to Slide Peak. The last time I skied on Slide Peak I almost cried because I thought it was so steep. This time it seemed fun and pretty easy. I loved skiing down the runs. The snow was perfect. I skied down both the blue runs and it was perfect. I never wanted to leave but Slide Peak closes early and so after 5 runs we left.

Alfalfa

I drove past a semi -truck full of bales of fresh hay today.

The smell permiated my car.

It is my smell.

It smells like home.

It is summer at its finest.

It smells like Grandma's house.

It is learning to walk,

playing in the sand,

learning to drive,

and riding a four-wheeler for the first time.

It reminds me of a first boy friend and a final good-bye.

I wonder if Alfalfa will grow in our mountains?

Brianhead

We planned a ski trip to Brianhead, Utah to use our tax return to its fullest advantage. We wanted to go to Mammoth but it was too expensive... tickets were too expensive, the lodging was too expensive... probably the food would have been too expensive too. Brianhead looked like a better option.

On Thursday morning we loaded the car with the kids, their stuff, the dog, and some of our stuff and headed over to Grandma Sue and Pa pa's house. They were very generous in watching the kids and allowing us to go on the trip. We couldn't even fit all our stuff in the car... (this is the reason we need a new bigger car.) We said our good byes and at last we were alone with no kids for almost 4 days!

We headed home and finished loading our stuff and then we drove up to Snow Valley. We had to get some goggles so that we both had a pair and their sports shop is the best place to buy things. We enjoyed a cheap breakfast at Snow Valley and then headed down the road. We decided to drive through big bear and out because it is about the same distance and a much more scenic drive. There sure was a lot of snow. This picture is of Snow Valley and the amount of snow down Bear Canyon. Cameron would really like to ski here.
We enjoyed a nice drive where we talked about adult things and no one cried the whole way. We stopped for lunch and enjoyed the time together. We arrived in Brianhead just as it was getting dark. Here is a picture of the moon coming up over the cliff. Look at the big ice waterfall off the cliff.

We enjoyed some pizza in Brianhead and then headed over to our hotel. We stayed at the Cedar Breaks Lodge and Spa. Our room was very nice. I loved the fire place, jetted tub and the big king size bed. We enjoyed our time together and watched some olympics on Thursday night. I was amazed to wake up on Saturday and see the view outside our hotel room. Isn't it great?

Brianhead does not open until 9:30 am. We thought that was incredibly late but it allowed us to have time to get breakfast, relax getting ready and still be on the mountain when it opened. We were lucky that Cameron is on ski patrol and were able to get tickets from their ski patrol. By 9:30 we were ready to ski.

I like the long wide runs that Brianhead had. And I loved the quality of snow. Southern California snow is just not quite as good. We spent the morning exploring the mountain. I skiied down all the blues and Cameron would see what the blacks were like around the same area. I felt pretty good about my skiing but I was pretty slow. My big accomplishment was that I wasn't afraid of the runs even though they were steeper than what I had been skiing at Snow Valley.

We met Jeff and Mandie around lunch time. Then we traded boys riding with each other and girls riding with each other for the afternoon. We also switched back and forth.

This is us at the top of the mountain. We liked to runs off to the one side called the Dunes chairlift.

After I skied until 2:00 pm I was so tired that I called it quits. Skiing down all those hard runs and turning too many times made my legs burn. I decided to head back to the hotel for a nap. The rest kept skiing the remainder of the day. When they got back the boys made us fajitas while Mandie and I relaxed on the couch.

We then enjoyed the hot tub, pool and steam room to relax our soar muscles. It felt so good that now a hot tub is on our list of things to buy. We also played settlers of Cataan in the lobby. I won which made it all the better.

This is a picture of our fire place. I thought it was nice to have in our room.

Saturday we ate muffins and fruit for breakfast. Then we head up to the resort. I wanted to ski on the easier mountain, (Navajo Mountain,) so that I could have a little more fun instead of working so hard. We all headed over there on a cat track. I loved the other mountain with the long, wide runs that I could ski down very quickly. Mandie and I spent the whole day over there enjoying crusing and working on skills while going fast.

It started snowing and was so windy in the afternoon. We took a few runs and were told by the lift operators that we were "hardcore." We liked that. After some really strong wind and frozen fingers Mandie and I went back to the hotel around 3:00 pm to get ready for our evening.

We went out to a nice dinner and watched it snow while eating. We then enjoyed the hot tub again and went back to our room. We were all exhausted and went to bed pretty early because we couldn't stay awake.

Sunday, Cameron made crapes and we learned to play texas hold em before we had to check out and drive home. I wish we could have stayed longer and decided that next year we will have to go again. It was a wonderful vacation!