Skiing yesterday

We went skiing yesterday and this time more of Sam's family came to join us. His dad and two brother drove up to meet us and we had a lot of fun. Rachel took another lesson and then in the afternoon we took her on the big lift and took her down some greens. I don't have many pictures, because we took a ton of videos--so here is one of my favorites from later in the day. This one is courtesy of Mike--so we could have a video with the whole famliy in it.



As soon as we took Rachel on the big hill she was trying to to jumps...just like her dad :-)


here are two more videos, I am having trouble embedding them to the site, but i think these links will work.

video one--skiing backwards
video two--not stopping

A successful night at Young womens

So I planned a cake decorating class for wednesday night and I had a good turnout (6 YW and a mom, and about another 6 younger siblings) and they all want to do it again next week. So ..YAY to me! Anyone with tips for cake decorating is encouraged to contact me...because I really have no idea what I am doing, :-)

A good read

I loved this book. I wished I had my own copy, so maybe I will buy it after the fact--wierd I know--but I can't be the only one who does that. It is thoughtful, and fun. About a girl trying to figure out what she wants to do with her life, includes recipes, and a venture to a small town in Maine. I feel like I can relate a little bit, still trying to figure out what my dreams and passions are so that I can start following them. I also enjoyed reading the interview with the author in the end. When I read those I am intrigued and jealous at the same time. Loving to hear how they came up with the story, what their life is like as an author, and wishing that it was about me 'the author' at the same time.

Go Cardinals!!

Wow! Two good games in a row, and when it was needed the most--we are psyched!!! we are soooooooooooooooo wishing we could go to the superbowl :-)

Just call us "The Family that skis"

Since we are now ski owners this weekend we went to Sunrise for our first of many family ski trips. It was Rachel's first time, and Sam and I haven't skied in 7 years so we were very excited to say the least. Sam's brother Mike drove up to join us, which worked out really well. Sam and Mike took off first thing and were able to enjoy the morning skiing together, while Rachel and I both went to ski school. I have only been twice before, and with that being 7 years ago, I thought I better get up to speed if I plan on being anywhere near Sam.

After my lesson we all met up and picked up Rachel and took her down the bunny hill to check out her skills. She says her favorite part is riding the lift. They had a decent bunny hill with it's own little lift. Here she is at the top of the bunny hill.

Her technique

It may look like I was being helpful here..but in reality it was more like a two-person human pretzel. Picture a beginner trying to help out a first-timer when they fall and their skiis are all all twisted. I will admit it...and yet I am grateful that none of these pictures Sam took captured it so there is no actual proof.

She actually did way better when we let her just go solo. She can turn a little, but not enough to slow down very much, so once she got going pretty fast she would sometimes fall. She would start to cry and I would think "oh, she is done. She is not going to want to keep skiing" But then I would ask her if she wanted to be finished, and she would say, "No Mom, I want to keep going until I can ski all the way down and not fall."

Uncle Mike volunteered to stay with her for a little while so Sam and I could go skiing together once. She even taught her a thing or two while we were gone. My favorite is when I got back she looked over and pointed to the big mountain, and she said with attitude "With a little bit more practice, that mountain will be mine!" A little suprised, I asked "Is that so?" and she said "Well, that is what Mike said." So here is Rachel and Uncle Mike in their video debut.


By the end of the day she could ski all the way down the bunny hill without even falling. My favorite was the last one where she had enough momentum to ski right past the line to get back on the lift. Then she said she wanted to ski all the way to the car. I told her it was too hard since it was too flat. She begged, so I gave her my poles to help her out. When she was about 3 feet from the sidewalk (and after that a flight of stairs) I told her that was as far as she could go, and she said once again, 'no, I am going to keep going.' And then she gave the poles one more push and shot forward, I of course then dropped my boots and my skiis in attempt to rush over to stop her from flying down the steps, but thankfully she came to a stop once she landed on the pavement. Everyone nearby got a kick out of that, so glad we could provide some comic relief.

Out of Hand

No school again today...need I say more?

snow day

We woke up this morning to a white blanket of snow. While sometimes it can be depressing to be stuck in the house in grey weather, there are usually small bits of fun that come of it as well. While I don't have any pictures, today there were some highlights that I don't want to forget. One was bundling up and going on a walk in the snow, and finding huge icicles to have sword fights with. Another was coming inside and drinking hot cocoa to warm up. I also enjoyed reading a good book--while it was in a different form than I am used to (I took my sister's advice and tried out the downloadable ebooks from Chandler Library) it was still nice to have a good book to read, for all the same reasons I love to read any book--to escape from reality, to travel to imaginary places, to dream about writing my own book someday. Today I decided that there are two types of really good books, the ones that make you giddy, and the ones that make you cry. Hopfully I can write a giddy one. While there is a certain dramatic effect from tragedy, and characters can learn a lot...crying is not as fun as laughing.