Good, Better, Best??

We still had 6 ski tickets left, and no takers, so I decided to take the kids skiing one last time to Park City. It sounded like a good plan. I was concerned because the weather didn't look promising, but we went anyway. When we got to Park City, it was snowing pretty hard, but we went anyway. The good thing was, there was close to an inch of new snow. The bad thing was it was ice underneath. The other bad thing was the new snow was extremely sticky, so it was hard to keep up your momentum. Makenzie took off her skis and walk a few feet, and had about 3" of snow stuck to the bottom of her boot. The other bad thing was that the visibility was poor. The other bad thing was that it was really windy up on the top, and surprisingly cold for April 7th. After 3 runs, the 3 younger ones, not to mention mom, had had enough skiing for the day and year. Makenzie couldn't seem to stay on her feet, and fell down again and again. So we left.

McKay got into a big snit because he didn't get the candy he wanted, and poked a hole in the seat of the car with a stick. So, I told them we couldn't go out for lunch and we just ate leftover pizza when we got home. I think some of the kids (!!!!) might be a little spoiled.

My alternate plan for the day was to go to the temple and then to institute. Sounds like it might have been a better plan. Less stressful and certainly less expensive. The institute lesson was the first 1/2 of the Easter lesson, and I hated to miss it. And, I won't have time to go to the temple later this week, or next week either.

But, Keaton said it was fun just to spend the day together as a family, and it was memorable. (I wanted to take some pictures of us being blown around in the blizzard, but my hands were too frozen.) Besides, although we skied downhill 6 times and cross-country twice as a family (I cross-country skied 10 or 11 times total myself), we probably won't do much skiing anymore, because Dave simply can't do it. It really damaged his knees this year and he regrets going. So, maybe it was the best choice after all.

Welcome to Kansas

We are experiencing the worst wind I've seen in a long time tonight. Our greenhouse is totally destroyed. We'd have to start over from scratch with it. So sad. Also, our little wood playhouse (that we use for garden tools) blew right off the terrace and down by the pool. It is in pieces now. So, so sad.

Dave's back is out. With all the work our children require (and yes, I do think many of them are extra challenging, we are in parenting 505) it is so hard for me to have Dave sick or injured so much of the time. But, we still have to get it all done. I think we'll have to cut back to smaller yard/smaller house for me to deal with it all. We'll see. HOPEFULLY, all this will pay off eventually, but I'm sure not seeing it now. Of course it is not all drudgery, but I tell the kids we would have more time for fun if they would be more diligent and organized about getting their responsibilities done. :)

Bountiful Baskets

On Saturday, we tried out a new option for produce. It's a co-op called Bountiful Baskets. You pay $15 (I guess that can vary up to $25, but we paid $15 Saturday) and get a basket of produce. You get 6 fruits and 6 vegetables. With the way food prices are going, I thought I'd give it a try. I know we eat a lot of fresh produce, so I got 2 baskets, plus an add on of heirloom tomatoes. Umm, it is a ton of food. We got apples, oranges, bananas, watermelon, strawberries and mangos; lettuce, zucchini, asparagus, tomatoes, bell peppers and green beans. I'm very pleased with what we got, especially at the price. You can also add on tortillas, breads, stuff to make salsa, and so on. We got extra food in ours because Dave helped sort everything out. It is all volunteer, and they try to use smaller and more local farms, so that is what helps keep the costs down. Of course, it's not really local stuff this time of year! If it sounds interesting to you, look at Bountiful Baskets and see if they have a site near you!

It's a Miracle

Wow, I didn't realize that it had been so long since my last post! Well, here's the thing--I've got to figure out how to add pictures to make my blog more interesting. And then take the pictures, I suppose. What a great weekend. Of course, Friday we went up to the wedding. It was such a nice day. It was fun taking the kids too Aggie Ice Cream. My kids are so indoctrinated to USU, especially Keaton. Getting married in the Logan Temple is even more of a tradition, I wonder who will break it??? I was definitely very tired by the time we got home, though. Saturday was wonderful, and gorgeous weather again. I went jogging (7 miles) and met some friends while out, so that was fun. It was lucky, too. They told me about their pact to not eat any sugar, snacks, white flour, etc. in April, except on Easter, and convinced me to join them with one caveat: we would go out to lunch and maybe have a little treat for my birthday on the 17th. When I got home, Dave had gone out for doughnuts and a bunch of treats for conference. So, I couldn't share in the treat fest. Yeah!! Conference was great, it was one of my favorites recently, and not only for the talks. The kids are getting so they listen better, although they are still so talkative its sometimes hard to hear. But, we watched all the sessions together, and I not only didn't fall asleep, I didn't even feel tired! Usually I crash during a few talks on Sunday, but I heard them all. We decided that service was a big theme. What other themes do you think there were?

We are usually pretty good about not doing work on Sunday, and keeping the Sabbath day holy, but we did quite a bit of work yesterday. First, we had terrible winds on Saturday night, and much of Sunday, along with snow and cold temperatures. Our greenhouse got ripped up pretty bad, so Dave had to fix it yesterday afternoon or we would have lost all our little garden thats been growing out there for more than a month. Hopefully it will recover.

The other thing is that I've been working really hard on, I guess you'd call it spring cleaning, and I want to finish before we leave for spring break Friday, so I scheduled to have the carpets cleaned Monday morning. So, we had to get all the of the furniture moved and the carpets vacuumed yesterday. Along with all the cleaning and scrubbing, we've also been patching the walls and touching up the paint, so things should look a little better around here after we are done.

Shall we guess whose bedroom was the worst? Keaton's, of course. But the kitchen is the biggest job, and that is still ahead of me. Whew.

What goes down must go up

I forgot to mention in my previous blog that I also got a call from Makenzie's teacher that she had a really rough day on Thursday. I guess some girls did some things she didn't like, so she got really mad and said mean things, and even kicked one little girl on the shin. So, her teacher wasn't too happy, and said she often used cruel words, berated others, etc, and so she was struggling socially and so on. It was very disheartening. She kind of unloaded. I guess when you are upset with someone, you just see the negatives. I wrote back and addressed the issues, but also followed with the social aspects, because Makenzie talks as if she has a ton of friends at school. Her teacher responded that she does, because she is so fun, but they are mad at her a lot. Makenzie IS fun and she also can be very kind, especially to those in need. She did apologize, and I'm sure very sincerely. She does feel bad when she is unkind. She cried herself to sleep at 5:00 Thursday night after we talked to her about what her teacher had said. She is a good girl at heart.

Dave and Keaton got in a big fight on Friday night, and he went to sleep on the couch at 8:00 and even slept through a movie while I sat by him. I don't know why my kids are so tired and grumpy lately. I hope they get over it.

Saturday we went skiing at Park City. They are having the best deal. It is called startnow, and it is ski lessons for $25 (normally $215). But what makes it really great is it includes a free all-day ski pass and the ski rentals. AND, you can get the deal even without taking the lesson. You can have up to 4 total. We couldn't get into a lesson today, so we just used one of our days and skied. We were worried about how the little kids would do, but we skied all the runs together, and they did great. They struggled on the steepest black diamonds, but were awesome on the double blue, so it was a good day. It was sunny and about 44˚ at the base. Lunch was $84. I didn't think the meals were too overpriced, but when you have 5 drinks at almost $4 each it adds up fast. We forgot to take a camera or even a phone, so we have no pictures yet again.

Tonight Dave and I went to a Valentine's day dinner dance at the club. It was an elegant and delicious buffet. They had caviar, oysters, Kobe beef, Filet, tons of dessert options, and bananas Foster. We danced one (1) dance. haha. Then we went to the store and ran into tons of friends, caught up on their lives, and I came home to start (!) preparing my sharing time for tomorrow. Which is why I am on the computer at 11:30 pm, so Good-night!

Fighting with Discouragement

Monday was a fun day, I guess. Carson, Makenzie and McKay had the day off school, so I took them skiing at Park City. Dave was supposed to, when he scheduled the lesson, but he decided to go to work, so I had to take them myself. It was a 9-3 lesson, so I went skiing myself, too. The Park City ski resort is one of my favorites, but I have to admit, I did not have a fun day. First, I was by myself; second, it was really windy up on top; third, I was feeling nauseated all day for some reason. So, I skied a few runs, sat in the lodge, skied a few, had lunch. Lunch was good, though. The Café had a really nice salad bar, and a good bison chili. I still felt sick, though. When I went to pick up the kids, they begged me to keep skiing with them, and take them up Payday. I wouldn't, because I was tired and it was really starting to blow and snow. By the time I got Makenzie's boots off, her eyes were glazed over. Walking out to the car, I noticed that she was literally walking asleep. So I took her hand and led her to the car. She slept from 4:00 until after 8:00 the next morning.

On Tuesday, we had piano class. Everyone seemed like they were doing so much better than my kids. They sure knew the CD songs better, because we never have time to listen to it. I left feeling like we really needed to spend a lot more time on piano every day. Then, I got a letter from Makenzie's reading teacher, saying how behind she was on her reading, and outlining all the reading activities I needed to start doing with her everyday. Altogether, it was very discouraging.

A Busy Week

What a week! It just flew by so quickly. Keaton started karate on Tuesday. It's kind of funny, because he is just a beginner, so he is in a class with kids mostly 7-9. No one even close to his size. He was going to quit, but I told him if he wanted to do karate, he was starting so late there was no way to get around starting with little kids. So, he decided to do it. Carson and McKay might also. Makenzie tried it, but she was so disruptive I was mortified. I can't imagine her in a ballet class. Yikes. The biggest problem is, we just don't have the time to fit karate in. Hmmm. Between math tutoring, math homework, reading, chores and piano, we're already so busy. Of course, if the kids were more efficient with their time, they'd have more free time.

Today Dave took the kids up to Park City for ski lessons. Normally we wouldn't go there because it is too expensive, but they are having a special of $25 lessons, which includes rental and passes, so we decided to do it. Since the lessons were only 3 hours, we decided not to ski ourselves, so Dave took them up himself. He says it was a zoo. There was a race going on, and it was packed. He ended up having to park at the high school and take the bus in. No one could tell him where the ski school was. It took him 2 1/2 hours to park, get rentals, find the school and check them in to the class. However, they can have 4 more lessons at the $25 price, and on those days they can ski all day. So it will be good.

I went to Sundance to cross-country ski. It was so fun, of course! It was a different experience than the first 2 times I went, because, first, I can ski better and knew the terrain better, so I was able to go on a lot more trails in the 2 hours I skied. The other thing, though, was that the quality of the snow was so different. It was much more sticky; in fact, in some places it would stick to the bottom of my skis and I'd have to keep knocking it off. It was snowman snow, not powder. The good thing was I could go straight up the hills, rather than having to herringbone. And the downhills were slower, too. So, I learned to deal with some new conditions. Awesome. I do need to learn to dress for cross country, though. I alway wear way to warm of clothes, then just sweat.

The kids have Monday off, so I'll have to downhill with them. Bummer.

Tomorrow we have Great to be Eight. I'm the one presenting all the kids. We have 11 getting turning 8 this year, and 2 of them are mine. It's kind of bittersweet, they are getting so big. Who made the decision to have Great to be Eight and Priesthood Preview during the middle of the SuperBowl?? Obviously the Bishop doesn't follow football. Neither do I, but I bet some people are going to be irked!