It is always fun to ski, but even more fun to ski with friends. One of our favorite parts of skiing at our local powderhorn is meeting up with friends to ski with. Whether it is planned or not, we always seem to find friends up there and it makes for the best days on the slopes.
We celebrated the new year with a trip to Ourey. It was spectacular. We loved skiing through this mining ghost town, Irontown, high up in the San Juan mountains. It was a beautiful day, and it was fun to learn all about the buildings and mines in the area. A great place to ski.
We spent the evening enjoying the hotels hot springs, and the next day we snow shoed a trail in Ourey through the ice climbing park. This is so cool to see. We were able to watch ice climbers climbing the farmed ice in the canyon below from several vantage points, and the scenery wasn't too bad either.
Such a great trip, and so muc to see.
Dave took the Young men he works with at church on a fun cross country outing on the Mesa. Our friend took these pictures, and they are so great. I am grateful for good photographers!
It is so fun to see Spencer having fun with his friends. He is blessed with a large group of boys his age and a great group of involved parents who help make activities like this possible, They have a lot fun together.
I am involved with the Art Heritage porgram at our local elementary school. This year was the year they did the BIG project. It is a shoe box that they glue random objects into, and then we spray paint them. The kids LOVE this project, and I HATE it. My pointer finger hurt so bad after spray painting the box's for hours. Not to mention that this was done in the dead of winter, so they had to finish drying inside, and the building smelled like paint so bad that I made enemies with several teachers. I was so glad when this was done!
Jacob played another season of basketball, and loved it. It is so fun to see this group of boys become good friends, and get a little better at basketball. They really figured out how to pass a bit more this season, which was a nice change.
I snuck in to watch the end of one of Amanda's academic team matches. I realized it was her senior year, and I still had not watched her play live. This was not entirely my fault, as she had been less than keen on us watching her play. It was really fun, but mostly intense, and fast. I could never do well at this. She is so quick, and as a team, they do a good job strategizing for the most points. It is really remarkable to see them in action.
Amanda also made it into all state orchestra this year. She was first oboe in the second orchestra, which was a great placement, for the state of Colorado. She was very pleased with this placement and it is sure to help her with her auditions for college.
But getting to All State, was less than smooth sailing. This was February, min you, in the mountains of Colorado, and there was a storm brewing. They left early, with hopes of beating it, but it didn't work out. They got to the pass, just as it closed, unless you have chains, and our district wont let school vehicles travel over the pass when the chain law is in effect. Dave and I were getting text updates, and they were hoping the pass would open, but after waiting for a couple of hours they gave up hope, and started to look for a plan B. Plan B ended up being me (and another parent) driving the truck up to meet the kids to get them over the pass in non district vehicles. We also were asked to stay with the kids for the entire weekend, as we took the teachers places. It was fun, but a bit crazy trying to figure out all the ins and outs of getting the kids where they needed to be, and when, without a lot of planning. Not to mention trying to supervise teenagers in hotel rooms. But we pulled it off, and everyone lived, and even had a fun time.
The performance was fantastic, and I was glad got to be there for it. Amanda played beautifully, and loved the music her orchestra played. American in Paris is one of my favorites too, and it was fun to hear these talented kids pull it off.
The bonus part of the trip was the bike shop I came across that was going out of business. I ended up buying three pretty bikes (2 mountain bikes, and one road) for such steals, I actually apologized to the store clerks. Not to mention tons of tubes and other bike gear, it was a good trade off for an unplanned trip. Good thing I had the truck with me to bring home all the goods, and a few parents came to watch the concert, so I only a couple of kids to take home. The only hiccop of the trip for me was the hard fall I took in the parking lot of our hotel one night. I walked out to the truck to get something, and slipped on the black ice. I fell hard! I hit my back and head pretty hard, and had to lay there for a bit before I got up pretty gingerly, both from pain, and not wanting to slip again.
Back at home things were a little crazy for Dave. He had planned to come join me for the concert, we had a babysitter lined up to stay with the kids over night, but Jacob had other plans. He had been fighting a cough for a few weeks, and then he spiked a fever on Saturday morning. He ended up with double pneumonia, and Dave even took him in for breathing treatments for a couple hours. He healed fine after getting on antibiotics, and made his valentine box while mending. Greatful for modern medicine!
A few other projects to keep the kids busy through the cold months.
Random marshmellow snowman
Spencers marble run from his tech ed class
One of several puzzles we worked on this year
Maren's beautiful artwork from her drawing class.
And Jacobs clay replica of our grand valley he made at school,
And to wrap up this wintery post, a few pictures of the very snowy winter we had. There was so much snow! It was crazy. Everytime we planned to go skiing it seemed like the road to the top of the mesa was closed for avalanche control, so we skied a lot of Mesa lakes area, and a few days at Powderhorn.
This was our annivesary, Happy 20th to us!
No comments:
Post a Comment