Spring Break

Usually when spring break comes around, I have a hankering to be someplace warm. Since Mexico or Hawaii are out of the question, Danford (for three years in a row now) talks me into going skiing and I am always, always glad he did. This year we spent two days at Mt. Bachelor in central Oregon and we could not have picked two more beautiful days to be on the mountain.



On day 1 Luke took off with his cousin Sam for parts unknown and we basically just saw them when it was time for lunch and then at the end of the day. Hannah spent the day in a lesson, so Danford and I were left with just Cole and Tyler for the day.





It was fun skiing with them and they did great. Danford would take off in the front with Tyler right behind him and Cole behind her. They kept right up with him all day.





Hannah did great in her lesson and when I picked her up I expected her to be tierd and grouchy, but she immediately was begging me to go do a run with her. Then she wanted to do it again.



Day 2 dawned, if possible, even more beautiful than day 1.



Tyler was so excited to ski with her cousins.



Which she did, and they skiied together all day. It was really fun to see all the kids skiing together. For the most part Danford stayed with Hannah and Chris stayed with Quinn. I stayed with Tyler, Mattie and Lauren all day and the boys stayed together.

This is what we looked like all day, a little train zig zagging across the mountain.

Every once in a while the boys would show up and stay with the girls for a few runs and then they would take off again.

And then every once in a while the girls would catch up with Quinn and Hannah and ski with them for a bit. Look at the cute ski bunnies!

If we could order up weather like this any time, I would be up for skiing much more often. Julie will have to start charging us to stay at her house and eat her food.

Very soon though, I will not be able to keep up with my kids at all. I will be the old lady sitting in the lodge all day with her book and her hot cocoa waiting for my family to stop by for lunch or a break. I can see it coming. I'll just have to enjoy it while they can still stand to ski with me.

Visitors

Last week we had a visit from Danford's parents. They had not been here in a couple of years so it was good to see them. The kids enjoyed having them around, especially the girls who enjoyed having someone (namely Grandma) who would play games and read stories to them whenever they asked. They spent most of their time just watching the flurry of activity as I ran in and out running kids here and there. But Danford did take a few days off and drove them up to Timberline Lodge one day. They had lunch and walked around outside marveling at all the snow up there. We also took them to the Columbia employee store where we all enjoyed shopping.
Danny swears this is his last trip, but we will just see about that.

My favorite part about having them here - Edna does my dishes for me every night. Thank you very much!

bye, bye winter

At least we hope so. As this winter draws to a close (it's premature I know, but one can dream), I consider what a bizarre winter it was for Portland. I never thought we would see this much snow here.



Here are our top 5 things we loved or possibly hated (depending on how you look at it) about this winter (in no particular order.)
1. A 3 week long winter break. (which we are paying for now by the way.)
2. Sliding down our street on rubermaid lids.



3. Building numerous snowmen.
4. Building a snow fort in our front yard big enough to hold two people.





5. The most snow that our family has seen in our yard in... well, since any of our kids were born.

Now, bring on Spring (which is to say rain).