Our January Get Away

As I mentioned in an earlier post, we received a most wonderful Christmas gift from my parents. Let me tell you about it --

Four adults, who were without their seven offspring

Boarded a plane headed for Arizona

To spend a week, a week doing whatever we wanted

Whenever we wanted

It was fantastic

Wonderful

Fun

Relaxing

A must-do again, soon

We left these beauties, snow and below zero winds

(this picture is from fall - think no leaves, no green grasses and lots of snow)

For these, ancient drawings in a warm climate




And huge, ancient junipers growing out of desert rock

I wanted to hear the stories these walls could tell. Of children giggling, mothers grinding corn for family meals and of waterfalls cascading down from high above during the rainy season. We saw ancient fingerprints held in clay mortar that, so amazingly, is still holding the house walls together

We found this high atop a land-bridge. It was 17 seats in a circle, with some sort of covered fire pit. The seats were all in this huge sunken circle and for the most part quite comfortable. It was one of those very unexpected finds that makes you stop and ask questions. Why? Who? How? Why? I'll probably never know.

I do want to go back some time to sit and watch the sunset and drink a glass of wine with my B, my husband. It was pretty magical

We added to the great number of these. Those hands are my brothers. It was he and his wife who were with us. They minus five offspring. B and I missing our two.

We did a lot of this

Saw these, I loved them. Found out the indigenous people used this plant for food, fiber, hunting implements, and poison too. Food and poison, a mere 4 hours (or was it days), of roasting in difference. I'm sure there are many other uses but that is what comes to my mind

Sedona, Arizona

Book a flight now, run, go do it, you really should.

I had never spent any amount of time in the desert. I loved it and can't wait to go back someday.

Thanks mom and dad for your great thoughtfulness in setting up this vacation for us. All the details were perfect.

Oh, and many, many thanks for keeping all the grand-kids, they had a great time being with you and being with each other.

What do you say, Hawaii next?

GraditudeX5

- Clouds low on the mountains (I'm also thankful for the snow falling up high)

- Little hands who are willing to help

- Princess and her love of her brother, even when he is being a pain

- Meyer Lemons

- Great Parents - Really Fantastic Parents - Parents who show love and patience

Sunday - Family Walk

It was just too sunny to stay inside so we loaded up into the truck and headed to the river to go on a walk and give Elsie a bath.

Smiles were worn by all.Elsie loves to ride in the back seat with the kids

First things first - find Elsie a stick

The hubster found me a heart rock

Princess found an ice arrow

I really like heart shaped rocks

Elsie waiting for the stick to be thrown

She stands funny when anticipating the next throw

Looking up to the west - can you see the lookout? We all hiked up there last summer. Princess did it in her socks.

Rivers are a great place to think

We tossed rocks through thin ice

The prince managed to stay dry

Elsie got her bath/swim

We walked and discovered

She smiled a beautiful smile



We saw things dying



We saw new growth, that reminded us spring is coming.

Our beloved winter is leaving.

We came home and cooked chicken burritos and watched movies.

Today was a great Sunday.

GraditudeX5

- Digital cameras

- Netflix

- A husband who likes to cook

- Sunday walks by river edge

- Jalapenos

Friday in pictures {with a few words too}

Fridays are my days.

Thanks to a great husband who understands skiing weekly, on my own, is much cheaper than therapy.
I love Fridays. I LOVE my man.

Waking before my alarm goes off. A great way to start my day. Having all my gear laid out, ready for me to silently get dressed. A great way to start my day. Kisses in the dark, saying goodbye and letting him know I love him and his gift of my escape. A great way to start my day.

MY DAY

The moon was low in the east. Skies were beautiful.

Driving down our road I had to stop and capture another glance at my morning

35 minutes into my drive these beauties came into view. (My husband and I got married at their base and they wowed all of our family with their beauty. They witnessed our profession of love and commitment to each other. I love these peeks, The Three Sisters, we call them.)

And then at 8:27am this is what I'm driving past. Not a bad sight on my day.

Actually, this is my view. I wanted to show the peak up close and personal. And, I didn't want to admit that there is no snow on our valley floor. That makes me sad.

Thankfully the mountains are holding lots of snow. And that is where I'm headed.

The drive continues...

Starting up the pass. My first look at runs on the mountain. My dashboard, the braided thing? you ask. It is sweet-grass. Never smelled it? You really should. It smells wonderful. Natures car freshener.

The ridge that connects north and south mountains. Off this ridge is where I'll play today.

Self portrait heading up the chair.

Chair #2 - One of my favorite runs! - View from midway looking north - I love this tree

Another reason I love my Fridays, ski classes. Not only do I get away from the house and all of its duties, but I get to learn.

Learn from her...

And this my friends, is my all time greatest ski teacher. She pushes me to places I wouldn't go on my own. She has helped to groom me into the skier that I am today. I have SO much to learn. She is trying to bring back the word 'rad'. She is soo RAD! Hella Rad. She carries saws (aka chainsaw) up hills and fights fires all summer. She grew up on a real working ranch. Someday (soon) I'm going to be able to keep up with her flying down the hill, letting our 'mother-ship' lead. That is one of my goals.

Me and my Friday ladies only ski class
(I am second from the left)

This is how we ended another perfect day. With food and beer. Ended as any good day should.

I LOVE MY Fridays!!!!

GraditutdeX5

- Shaped skis

- Blue skies and mountains

- Caring husband who provides for our family (who lets me play)

- Low pressure systems that bring snow to our mountains

- Teachers, friends, and the Grassers. Oh we love the Grassers

- Snow. Lovely white snow

Graditude

Part of my WWW* homework is to be more consistent. To pick one or two things and maintain consistency. Yikes! I am not a creature of habit, normally.



One of the my choices, after kids school and thinking about dinner before 4:20pm, was this, blogging. I'm still not 100% sure how I will or want to use this 'journal'. But I'm thinking a good way to figure that out is to just do it. I don't have expectations of daily entries but twice a week is reasonable.



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One of the new things I am doing with the kids is creating a 'This I Believe List' with each of them. I think it will be an interesting snippet of things important to them at this time in their lives. It may be very interesting to look back at in future years.


New found family fun. Ice Skating.
We are all enjoying frozen lakes and ponds. We have even went to the rink a couple of times. It is so funny to see Prince in his little hockey skates cruising all over the lake. I love being able to expose them/me to new and challenging experiences.
I never really enjoyed skating when I was young. I always had those horrid white figure skates that never fit properly, floppy ankles and freezing toes, hurting fingers and a cold body.
Thank goodness for my mountaineering husband who makes sure we are all outfitted with great fitting skates and layers of merino wool, capaline and gortex. He is all about going into the outdoors well prepared.
Prepared for most everything.
This used to annoy me.
All the packing and the 'just in-case' preparations. I saw it as time wasted. Now, after 12.75 years of marriage I have reaped the benefits of his preparations many many times. Rain coats when unexpected showers fell. Fleece pullovers on mountain peaks where it was near frigid, though sweltering hot in the valley and I thought he was nuts to carry the extra weight. Not nuts just smart.

This is the man I love and am grateful for everyday.

GraditudeX5

- My family, both near and far

- Wisdom from www ladies

- Season Pass for skiing

- Library Cards

- Choices

* I'll tell more about this in the near future. It is one of those blessings that everybody should have, if they want.

Lots of this and that with pictures

Here I am.

I am soooooo sucking at this regular blogging concept. Oh well, it is only for me and for the kids when they are older. While we are on that subject, that being kids, let me digress. As I call him, Little A let me know today that 1. he is not little and 2. his name is NOT Little A. OK, fine. He is right - he is neither of those. For me that poses a question, what shall I call him and Miss I for that matter, so that someday there future employer doesn't read all about their childhood. So, after our chat I asked what they would pick for internet names. Note to self, don't ask for input where I don't really need it. After much discussion this is what they have came up with. 'Miss I' my girl prefers to be known as Princess and 'Little A' prefers Prince. Believe me this did not come easy. There must have been 20 to 40minutes of discussion figuring out what they wanted their names to be in cyber land. Not bad, not great. I can deal with their new cyber names.

I'm giving up trying to fill in all the blanks of what happened during the days/weeks I don't write. Ya get what ya get and ya don't throw a fit, per the kids.

So here we go... Oh, and forget what I said about not going back,cause we are going way back but for just a moment or two, possibly five. I feel the need. Having just lost my entire hard drive and NO I didn't have an external hard drive. I want to save some of these photos from being lost.

The Prince lost his first tooth way back on Sept. 26 2008. Oh, he is so cute! He pulled it out himself. I really should write the story of the MIA tooth fairy, perhaps one day soon. Lets just say the tooth fairy got hung up in Hong Kong and was a night late in visiting. We have a note to prove the Hong Hong trip too. In tiny tiny fairy handwriting no less.

Then came the second tooth 16 days later. Tooth fairy was on time. And payed good. I'm thinking of losing a couple.

Here is a fun little side note, see those baby blues? Wouldn't you think that his daddy or I have blue eyes? You might, but you would be wrong. Wrong, wrong. We are both brownish green. Now for the funky part - both of our mothers fathers had blue eyes. And now both of our kids have the most beautiful big blue eyes. I love them. And they some how got the blondish hair color, while we are both dark brown.

Genetics, pretty amazing.

Then came walks and picnics. This happened to be 10-08-08. Leaves were just starting to turn and fall. Weather was brisk. Snow was on the mountain tops and we were dreaming of...

Skiing. This was the first year that the kiddos got their own downhill ski gear. It was so funny to watch them walk/clomp all around the house in their skis. We were just waiting for snow.

One more picture from our day at the river..............

The Prince is 5 and 1/2 the Princess is 10 and 1/2

Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas all came and went. I have photos but won't add them at this time.
January brought many inches of snow down in the valleys and feet of the fluffy white stuff in the mountains. Which will hopefully keep the forest fires and smoke this summer to a minimum. And keep all of us smiling and playing till March.

That's all for this post. Next time the greatest Christmas gift of all - A trip with just adults to someplace warm and sunny. Wonderful. Wonderful. Many thanks to my parents.

Peace.