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.