Almost Spring

We spent this past weekend camping at the ski mountain for the boys' ski race finals. 1 day of fun skiing in beautiful sunny weather + 2 days of racing in beautiful sunny weather = the boys are not ready for the season to end! They were starting to get a little burned out on skiing, but now they just aren't quite ready for it to be done. We have one more day...kind of a wrap up, fun day, and that's that. 

But don't worry. They won't be bored. Soccer practice started for Preston today, and the other 2 will start after Spring break. 

But back to finals. The boys did awesome. They had tons of fun and raced hard. Archer win a trophy for slalom which he was super excited about. The other 2 were crazy competitive with each other. Bryton beat Preston by a tiny bit in slalom the first day, which made Preston mad of course...but he came out the 2nd day determined to beat B in giant slalom and beat him he did! 

So proud of these boys of mine. Skiing wouldn't be my choice for them for competitive sports, but I love that they all love it and can do it together. I am also starting to appreciate the "togetherness" of the ski team families. It's a much different atmosphere than your standard team sports, and everyone helps each other out and pitches in for pretty much anything and everything. (Maybe because we spend so much time together!)

I have tons of clean-up to do from camping, plus lots of laundry and wet ski gear to deal with, but it was worth it to see my boys all so crazy excited about this weekend, and the big smiles each time they crossed the finish line. I need to remember that for next year when I am feeling DONE with skiing!

Preston

Bryton

Archer

The trophy winner! 

My little goofballs!

And my view right now: soccer practice!

Where to start...

We have SO much going on I don't even know where to start. We have been skiing (skiing, and more skiing!) every weekend so it basically feels like all of our free time is spent at the mountain. The older boys raced last weekend and had a ton of fun. Preston's first run was amazing, but unfortunately he wrecked the second run. B did awesome too - no wrecks for him!

We had stitches (Preston, 5 stitches on the bridge of his nose after a fold-up basketball hoop fell on his face!). 

We have been skating, 

easy-bake oven baking, 

and whatever else we can fit in!

Double Digits!

Preston turned 10 on January 1st! I can't believe it's been 10 years since I gave birth to this boy.

He's such an amazing kid. He's sweet, a friend to everyone, loves school, reading, skiing, soccer, video games...pretty much everything! Even though he's getting older, he still loves to have some cuddle time with his mom occasionally. I will be so sad when he doesn't want to hang out with me anymore! Sometimes he will disappear into his bedroom and we find him in there engrossed in a book. He loves our chickens, and is definitely the chief caretaker of them. He usually does it without complaint! He can tell them apart and knows their names. I have no clue which one is which! 

Homemade birthday donut (on his actual birthday)

Archer made Preston a cake in his easy bake oven!

The day after his actual birthday (the day before his party), the boys had their first ski race of the season. It was technically a practice race since it was just with their team, but the boys took it pretty seriously and had a great time! 

Archer

Bryton

Preston

We celebrated his birthday by having some of his friends over for "decorate your own donuts" and then John took the boys to see Star Wars. 

Oh man. As I'm looking through pics on my phone I'm realizing that I might be *slightly* behind on blogging. Between Christmas and New Years is such a crazy time for us. Besides the actual holidays, John and I celebrated 14 years of marriage, the boys had 4 days of ski camp (we skipped one day though!), and then Preston's birthday of course. More on those another day!

First Camping Trip of 2015

This weekend was our first camping trip! I am amazed that #1 it is the beginningg of March and we're CAMPING, #2 I didn't freeze, and #3 it was at the ski mountain (and I still didn't freeze)! 

It was another warm, sunny weekend for skiing. There are definitely some bare spots starting to show, but they were still able to have a race this weekend. We headed up to the mountain early Saturday morning for Preston to practice, and then today was race day.

I was so proud of him...his first run was 20 seconds faster than his best run last race! He almost wiped out (it was slushy!), but he recovered and went on like nothing had happened (meanwhile I was watching with my heart in my throat!).

There are technically a few weeks left in the season still, but I'm not sure the snow is going to last that long. Everything was such a muddy mess! Ender was so excited that she got to come along, but between her and the kids, the trailer needs a complete wipe down. I guess I know what I'll be doing this week! 

Just another ski day

Since our lives consist of work, school, and skiing lately, the only pics we seem to take are skiing. Go figure.

We all went skiing today. P had practice, and the rest of us went to enjoy the beautiful day. I keep thinking we're bound to get hit with another bout of winter weather, but so far, so good! I can't believe how amazing the weather has been this winter. I almost don't want to admit it because #1, it might take a turn for the worse, and #2, I kinda don't want to admit that I've almost enjoyed winter this year!

Today was warm, sunny, blue skies: beautiful. We got to the mountain early, and it wasn't too crowded, despite the multitude of ski resorts nearby that are closed, or have bad conditions. The afternoon got a little crowded, but we were mostly tired out by then!

Tired boy!

Winter Stuff

Last night was the "school night" at the Spokane Chiefs, so we took the boys to their first hockey game. The seats were decent, and the game was pretty exciting. Unfortunately, we had to leave pretty early because we had to get up super early this morning for Preston's first ski race.

Preston has been on the ski team for about 2 months now, but we had decided that he would just practice this year, not race. Wellll...with the weather as crazy warm as it has been, some of the other mountains are closed, or have really reduced hours, so "our" mountain had an extra race today and Preston decided to go for it. He raced two runs and had so much fun! He said today was "the best day ever!!!"

B making first tracks in the powder super early this morning.

Preston ready to go!

Mid-race

Crossing the finish line!

Archer relaxing in the snow (I thought he was going to fall asleep!)

B goofing around

Celebratory root beers :)

Weekend of Skiing

The boys were off school Friday, so we decided to do a family ski day. I'm not a good skiier, so I usually avoid it, but I did quite a few runs on Friday. The boys are SO much better than me though, so they end up waiting for a while at the bottom. Oh well...they had Saturday to go crazy and ski all they wanted! 

Friday was perfect conditions. It was quiet. The snow was good. It wasn't too cold. I actually had fun (mostly). So I thought I'd try it again on Saturday...yeah. Not so great. It was well above freezing, and the snow was super sticky. I made it down one run (the easiest!) and called it a day. I camped out in the lodge until P's ski practice was done.

I ended up riding solo on the lift most of the time. The older boys want to ride together of course, and I'm not capable enough to help Archer get off the lift!

I took this pic accidentally as I was putting my phone in my pocket, but I love it. John is seriously always happy when he's skiing!

Birthday, take 2

We had Preston's "friends" birthday party this past weekend at Strike Zone (it's a Nerf gun arena place). It was so much fun, and despite the fact that there was a crazy amount of 8-9-10 year old boys there, it was pretty fun. Even a few of the dads got in on the action! We had quite a few boys show up, and even though it was pretty loud, Strike Zone was definitely a good place for it! 

I didn't get a good picture with all the chaos, but we did a "build your own" Minecraft "cake" - brownies with green frosting (dirt), Rice Krispie treats (made with chocolate and regular Rice Krispies, for coal), little bundles of red licorice (TNT), red jello (lava), and blue jello with gummy fish (water).

The next day was spent skiing, as are all of our Saturdays. Preston is still loving the race team, and B & A have definitely far surpassed my skiing abilities. I'm still working on enjoying the weekend being consumed by skiing. I'm not there yet, but hopefully soon! I do really want to enjoy it since the other family members do, but it's not really my thing!

In other big news, we have a trip to Disneyland coming up! It's been a few years since we've been there. I was hoping for another cruise, but logistically, it's hard for John to take that much time off from work...and a spectacular deal kinda fell into my lap, so Disney it is! (And Legoland. Archer wouldn't want me to forget about that!)