Christmas & New Years
It has been at least 6-7 years since we stayed at the cabin for Christmas (in the past we've had Christmas at home and then driven up the cabin after lunch), but this year we decided to go up there and have a White Christmas. We drove up on the 23rd after church. That evening my older brother Dean was talking about taking his kids skiing the next day (backtracking, Dean told us back in the fall about a special day where Sunrise offers free season passes to kids 12 and under if they come to the resort and buy a day pass for the lift, bring a can of food to donate, and recite one of the safety rules for skiing. Justin took them up for it and now Brighton & Adaira have season passes!). David's wife Marisa told Justin & I that we should go too with Brighton & Adaira and offered to watch Dale & Daisy for us. I really didn't want to take Marisa up on the offer because she already has three kids 4 and under, and we didn't have much time to prepare, but Justin made the argument that Christmas Eve would probably be less busy than the day after Christmas when people are running up there to use their new snow gear they got for Christmas. So we decided to take Marisa up on the offer and take the kids for a half day (but we were still gone from 10am-6pm), and that is just one of many reasons I love Marisa and am so grateful David married such a cool girl!
With the back problems I have had in recent years, I decided that my time snowboarding (since age 17) is over and I would be returning to skiing. Snowboarding, even though I've become proficient and can have a good time doing it, always means lots of time sitting or falling down on your butt, and usually 1-2 major face plants in a day from catching the front edge of my board when I'm going fast. I'm too old for it! I was nervous about skiing since I hadn't done it in so long and didn't know if it would take some time to readjust, and Justin decided to ski because the rest of us were and one of his snowboard boots was missing from his gear bag at the cabin (yeah for friends of the family using our gear, dangit), but Justin wasn't ever very good at skiing and is a much better snowboarder. Between the two of us we didn't want to try and teach the kids and practice for ourselves, so we enrolled them in a 90min class. Best decision EVER! Justin & I got to ski by ourselves (it's like riding a bike btw, came right back to me on the first run) for 90 minutes and then we picked up the kids from their class and skied with them for a few hours.
My handsome man on his skis.
These first two pictures are from Brighton & Adaira's practice runs down a little hill near the school (we had to wait about 30 minutes for the class to start after we got all our gear). We pushed them up the hill about 30-40 feet and let them come down. They instantly loved it!
Hi
When we picked them up they felt more than ready to go on the big mountain with us, so on the lift we went. If you listen on the video, when asked about skiing, Adaira says "It's awesome" and Brighton says "I think it's way better than awesome" I'm so glad they took to it so quickly!
Brighton was doing great on his own but Adaira was still unsteady (not surprising at her age) so on the steeper parts I would make a harness with my poles so I could guide her and keep her from going too fast. She had a great attitude and on our last run she did it without me completely.
Brighton's nose is inside his goggles in this picture, lol...
It started snowing on us, but it wasn't soft snow, it was blowing snow pellets and they hurt your face! You can kind of see them in this picture whizzing by.
There goes Brighton!
CHRISTMAS!!!
Christmas is just the best holiday ever. I feel sorry for those families that choose not to believe in Santa (we know a few), because I love these precious short years when all of my kids believe and the fun and anticipation they get to have. We had to tell our kids that all of these presents were not theirs! These were three families worth of presents.
Adaira modeling her skirt and chalk coloring for her hair.
We didn't have a ton of snow, but the cabin did get about an inch on Christmas Eve. This was the view on Christmas morning.
Adaira, Dale & Daisy got this Hummer to share, all of them love riding it. Plus, now when Daisy is whining and following me around, I just ask Adaira or Brighton to take her out for a ride in the truck. Gets her out of my hair and she loves it!
Justin & I got a new piece of land for Christmas. Yep, that's right. The day after Christmas we closed on an acre lot 2 miles east of where we are now. Providing we can sell our own house for a reasonable price, we will be building again and this new location should hopefully provide far more options for friends for our kids (especially Brighton) since there is a huge new home subdivision about 300ft away and another subdivision on the other end of our new street. We will get to enjoy the nice sidewalks, trails, and kids that come with high density home subdivisions, but not have to actually live in one (or have the HOA that comes with them, this lot is in a county island, so we can light fireworks on 4th of July, woo hoo!). I already have a floorplan drawn up and we will be downsizing by 600s.f., and I feel really good about that. The house will still have plenty of room, but it won't seem so overboard the way our current house does. Maybe we can even put in a pool with the money we save by downsizing (we got the lot for cheaper than we bought our current lot for too)! I don't know, but I'm excited and grateful that Justin is willing to build me another house, since he is the one who will suffer the most through the process. We are planning on putting our current house on the market in April after we have finished a few little projects that need to be done.
NEW YEARS EVE
We and the Pierce's from upstairs lit off our little fireworks at 7pm to celebrate the New Year. It was cold, but you know my kids will enjoy playing with fire any time...
Brighton helping Justin build a fire beforehand to warm us up.
Bundled up under a blanket with Dale & Daisy. I took something like six pictures trying to get a good one of us. I could not get them to look at the camera or keep their eyes open!
Will post pictures of our New Years Day activities in a separate post since it is in a different year. Happy New Year!
Comments
I'm so excited for your new house and what it will bring in the years to come. I'll bet Brighton will be able to input some as well.
Just a few short months till we are able to come back home! I'm very excited and a little nervous. It's been so long since we actually lived there; I hope that we adjust alright and that it's not too chaotic (since we aren't sure how long we'll be in a limbo stage probably living with some parent).
Thanks for the family update!