Things I Learned Today

1. The weather forecast is almost never correct. Actually I already knew that, but today was a reminder that I shouldn't forget that.

2. The dog thinks its funny to poop anywhere that I have to pick it up. I'm pretty sure she laughed at me during our 2 mile walk today.

3. Mowing our yard requires walking a total of 1.7 miles. In circles. At least it was nice weather (no thanks to Mr. Weather Man).

4. Double check your camera settings to make sure you are taking the 'large size' pics instead of the 'small size' pics. All my photos from today ended up in 'small size', which is unfortunate because a few of them were pretty cool (in my opinion).

Thanks for reading...

~E

Spring Skiing at Snoqualmie

Mikayla, Alexia and I were thrilled to take advantage of the "nice" weather today by spending the day skiing at Snoqualmie Pass. Grandpa Dave had planned to join us for the day, but he's now quarantined on The Island with the flu. We pray that you all get to enjoy a speedy recovery.

After the girls expressed continued interest in being cooperative, I agreed to take them both. In the past I've avoided this situation because I just couldn't see how teaching them both to ski at the same time, by myself, would work - it seemed like a disaster waiting to happen.

Now that they both have a little more experience and Independence, I agreed to make a whole hearted attempt. Since the Snoqualmie runs are almost all in view of the lodge, I was more comfortable taking them down there instead of Mt. Baker where the terrain is much more complex, making it difficult to keep people in your sights.

The morning weather provided classic Spring Skiing conditions, but was followed by afternoon freezing winds and a little bit of snow/rain.

We started off on the 'magic carpet' which is basically the same thing as the 'people movers' in some airports. We found that it's actually faster to remove your skis and walk back up the hill than it is to take the 'magic carpet'. Here is a video of the girls racing down the magic carpet 'slope': (link)


From there we moved on to the chairlift. The beginner chair only holds two at a time, so Mikayla stepped up and agreed to ride solo and I was thankful that no one needed to argue about it. Eventually Alexia rode the lift solo once also and you could see she was as proud as a peacock about it.

After Alexia discovered she had developed a blister and declared she was done for the day, we let Mikayla take two runs completely on her own. Here is a video of her finishing her first solo run... her breath at the end cracks me up. Way to go Mikayla! (Link)


After that, Alexia decided she was ready for another run or two so we made our way back to the beginner lift. Here she is acting like a penguin sliding on her stomach. What a nut! (Link)


On our final run, Mikayla made her second trip through the "terrain park" and ended up sailing off a 6 foot high jump without realizing what she was doing. It took a fraction of a second for her to think "Hey, the snow is really smooth all of a sudden!" and then "Uh oh, it's smooth because I'm no longer on the ground!". She landed hard and busted the binding on her rental ski. Thank goodness we paid for the $1 damage insurance. She hobbled her way back to Alexia and I and we agreed to call it a day and look for a Starbucks.

Thanks, girls, for having such good attitudes and making the best of the day. I had a blast!

~E

Back to normal.

Well, after months of worry and stress... the phone call finally came this afternoon.

Apparantly, now that I've satisfied my maximum out of pocket medical expenses for the year, 9 out of 10 doctors agree that I'm normal. The 'other' doctor was probably out-of-network so I can't afford to get his opinion anyway.

Thanks everyone for your prayers and support.

Now I guess I'll have to buck up and mow the yard since I've depleted my stockpile of excuses.

Hopefully the world will look a little more rosy and some good blog stories might start surfacing again.

Cheers!

~E

Happy Birthday to me...

Not much to publicly blog about lately, but I am really relieved to have made it to my 39th birthday, although I think that I've actually aged at least 10 years in the last three months.

Thanks, everyone, for the birthday wishes.

They mean more than you can imagine.

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Enough of that jabberwocky... right now Alexia and I are just trying to entertain ourselves at home while Tanya and Mikayla are at 4H doing her practice run Presentation.

Her performance will be judged tomorrow night at the county fairgrounds.

Wish her the best... she's been practicing hard and really knows her dog stuff. We're hoping she gets the blue ribbon she deserves. I'll post results as soon as I can.

Once they are home we'll do a quick cake/ice cream/presents and then send the kids off to bed.

Now... time to get started on my midlife crisis.

~E