Beaver Creek Skiing!

 We made it to Colorado to ski!  And I think it was our best ski trip yet.  We've skied at Beaver Creek before, and it's one of our favorites.  If you're looking for extreme skiing then you'd probably like other resorts better.  But this is a great resort for families, with a big variety of terrain.  Also, this year we skied at Beaver Creek every day, which was really nice.  In the past we've gone to another resort on one of the days, and somehow it just never worked great.  So it was nice to not have to deal with the stress of getting to, and figuring out, another resort.  We also stayed in a different hotel this year.  This hotel was right at the base of the resort, so we were by all of the restaurants and shops.  That was super nice.  We didn't drive our car once after we got there.

On our first day of skiing we put Sage in lessons.  She was so mad and insisted she didn't want lessons and would hate them.  The first thing she said at the end of the day..."Can I do lessons tomorrow?"  That girl.  But so glad she had a great experience.  We ended up putting her in lessons the next day, along with Kate.  Unfortunately, Kate didn't have such a great experience.  But we now call Sage the bullet when we ski because she goes so fast, so that was a definite win.

The first day we were there it snowed all day, so we got to ski in powder.  Jake and Zack made us go on blacks all day.  My legs were beyond exhausted by the end of the day, but for once I actually enjoyed skiing blacks.  The other two days were blue sky and amazing groomers.  Best of both worlds for sure.  I love a good groomer.  

Anyway, we skied our guts out, and enjoyed just getting away from everything.  Another win for the trip was that the roads were clear for our drive.  So amazing.  That drive is treacherous in the snow.  Definitely an epic ski trip!!

Why am I sitting in the back?  Because I can't even handle my kids fighting in the back seat.  So, so sick of it.

When you skied hard all day.

My favorite thing to do is the glow worm.  We were all so exhausted I had to beg everyone to do it.  But you ski down the bunny hill with glow sticks in the dark.  It looks like a glow worm coming down the hill.  So fun!

The candy cabin is a tradition.  Obviously it was a very sunny day.  Oh yeah, we watched a kid from ski school loading his pockets with candy.  I gave him the evil eye.

Warm cookies at the base every day at 3:00

Sister Trip

 In January I got to take an unexpected trip to stay with the Balls.  Mel had surgery to remove the melanoma in her leg and it was more extensive than they thought.  Gratefully, they got all of the cancer.  But recovery was going to be hard.  As in, stay off your leg and keep it elevated for a week.  Super easy to do with five kids.  The stars aligned (really I know God had a hand in this) and I had a week without too much going on that made it possible for me to head to Sammamish.  Yay!

Sister time is the best.  I had great fun being able to talk about all the things with Mel.  It was also fun to be a part of their family for a week.  I had great talks with all of her boys, and probably had big eyes while I watched them wrestle to the death in the evenings.  A little different than our family, but I loved it.  I got to take kids to and from school, go grocery shopping, and do some cleaning.  All of these things are more fun when you're doing them for someone else.  More of an adventure I guess.

I managed to go running in the mornings.  It was sooo nice to run in capris and a t-shirt.  On Friday I got to do an amazing hike.  Beautiful and green on the way up with amazing views at the top.  Loved it!

I'm so glad I was able to go help out.  I know I was representing Mom, plus the rest of my sisters who would gladly have been there if possible.  Thank heavens for family!

One of my runs.  It was just so nice to see beautiful green!  This day was a bit rainy.

I stayed in Big Rock Park for my whole run.  Some good trail running!

The big reveal of Mel's leg.  It's looking much better now!

Mel used crutches all the way in to the office.  On the way out we made the wise decision to get a wheelchair.  Much better!

The view from the top of my hike!

On the plane ride home we did a nice circle around Mt Rainier.  Beautiful!