Ski Trip

Back in January the kids had a semester break, so we went up to Canaan Valley again.  It really is a great time to go since the slopes are pretty empty on Monday. And we found out they give free lift tickets mondays if you bring a canned good. 

We were excited to see a lot of snow. 

Some was cold, tired, and hungry.

On monday Brent and Colin skied.  

We spent some time in the arcade and pool/hot tub and then went tubing.

We met Brent and Colin for lunch and then walked over to the tubing area. They had a great time.Colin said it was fun seeing how much better he was going on some of the same runs he did last year. Their only issue was they missed the shuttle bus and had to walk back

to the resort. I offered to go pick them up but Brent was sure they were close....about 45 minutes close! I should’ve been asking Colin if he thought they were close. 

The slopes were really icy this year. We flew down the lanes. Joel and I went down together and went out of our lane, into the next lane, back to our lane, then into Norah's lane next to us (good thing she had already gone down) then Joel flew over top of me in his tube and thats when I let go and refuesed to be tethered to either of their tubes. Its a good thing it was so empty so we didnt crash into someone.  Joel likes to tell people how we almost died tubing.  But after all that he has decided that maybe skiing is safer so next year hopefully we can get him to do that. 

Joel talked me into going down the steep lane tubing so I told him he had to try ice skating again. 

Still not a fan at all.  Why do you make me do this dangerous activity mom?  Do you want me to break my bones? 

I love it.  All those years rollerblading.  I could get roller blades but somehow this seems safer to me and less risk of falling. And we have the rink almost to ourselves. 

We ran into one of the head Girl Scout leaders in our area on the trip. Her family was also using the break to ski. I had gone to the lobby to pick up sandwiches for dinner before the shop closed and was talking to her and we saw people in their cars feeding the deer. I remember saying who would let deer eat out of their hands? I get back to our room and Joel and Norah are so excited because deer were outside the room and Joel had them eating oatmeal out of his hands. So my kids! My kids would let deer eat out of their hands. 

It was a quick but great trip.  We came home to all our snow melted and 60 degree weather.  We got our fill of snow this winter! 
 

Joel

 We’ve had a very busy month and I think this is the first weekend I’ve been home in a long time but before I forgot I wanted to record that on Feb 28 Joel tried to sue me.

I had told him if he did his exercises all month and didn’t complain then he could finally get Halo on the Xbox. January came and he didn’t get Halo because he slacked on his exercises. February came and he did his exercises consistently but was worse complaining about anything and everything.

He came home from school Monday and was so excited to download Halo. I said no. He lost it. Then went downstairs, took out his chrome book and started typing away.

He then informed me that he was going to sue me - I was in violation of a breech in contact. Also there were several articles of the constitution he thought I violated. He did not agree to the no complaining only the exercises and I did not make that clear when we made the verbal agreement. He researched multiple ways he could sue me for a breech of contract but then when I said it was only verbal and no witnesses he stopped. I told him to write out an actual contract that we can sign. I have yet to see a contract so we will see what happens. 

more snow

It snowed the next weekend.  At first they were calling for tons of snow but then it was less than the week before. Still enough to play in and more than previous years. 

Our fort was still standing.

Waiting for Brent to come outside
 

Snow

It finally snowed a few weeks ago. They originally said it would start snowing on a Friday so the kids got a day off for the snow that never came.  You never saw such sad kids all day looking outside waiting for a snowflake to fall.  It finally started snowing that night, so they went out to make a snowman in case that was all the snow we got. 

They were very excited to wake up and see it had snowed a few more inches.

Joel engineered a snow fort.

Wilbur was brought out to see the snow. He is wearing a sock Joel made into a sweater for him.

Snowball fights

Safety first

Football in the snow

The next day we went to the sledding hills to see what they had. 

The best runs were down to mud and grass but we got to go down a few times

And then all but our fort melted the next day.