Ski New Mexico 1

Halle, Arden, and I took ski lessons the first day we were there.  Arden got the hang of it faster than Halle and me.  The instructor took her down the practice slope (which is pretty steep) within the first hour.  She was able to do this with a harness.  Ok.  Let me rephrase that.  She was able to ski down the steep slope with the harness and her instructor.  Brian tried this with her a few days later and they both snow plowed.  It's harder than it looks to control the reins of a wild animal.


Halle and I had two days of instruction.  We had short skis to begin with so that we could get the feel of skiing before having to bother with long bulky skis.  The problem with the short skis, though, is that they are heavier.  With me not being accustomed to the high altitude, just having run a marathon two days before, and the heavy skis, I pretty much sucked.  I was not confident in my abilities.  I could manage on the baby slope, but once we got to the practice hill I was terrified.  I started out strong and confident, but that quickly faded.  I started going easy but then got up to a high speed and couldn't stop!  My heart was racing because I was going downhill fast and I didn't know how to stop.  I had not yet learned how to fall or pizza-wedge my skis.  And there were a lot of people at the bottom.  I was a bowling ball bound to hit one of those pins.  The unlucky one, a guy in our class, was close to the bottom, and entered in my line of descent.  He had just stood up after falling over.  Poor dude didn't know what was coming.  I rammed full-speed into him, knocking the wind out of him.  We both fell hard.  It was bad.  All of our skis went flying.  And he was pissed!  I apologized profusely, but he still glared at me because I hurt his leg.  At least I didn't take out a kid, right?  ;)

one of my bruises from the fall

Jack and Hahwah

Lately Jack has been attached to Halle.  He calls her "Hahwah."  If he gets in trouble by me then he runs to her.  If he is scared of a situation he runs to her.  If he is hurt he runs to her.  It's super sweet that he loves her like he does.

I walked into the living room and found this.  Halle was doing her schoolwork and Jack climbed up beside her with his work, too.

Ok this picture has nothing to do with this post, but it's hilarious!  The big kids put Jack and Delaney on a date.  Jack outfitted himself with a cowboy hat.  I guess he felt he was under-dressed and needed to spruce up.

Hmmm. Close.

How Jack rides a tricycle.

Recent Dialogues

I love listening to the conversations of kids.  Any kids.  They are little people with budding personalities.  Here's a few exchanges between sisters.

Arden, in an annoyed voice, "I know you did it Halle."  Halle, "What?  What did I do?"  Arden, "I don't know, but I know you did it."

Arden, "Ewwww, Halle, you're feet stink!"  Halle, nonchalantly, "You'll get used to it."

Arden, "This is my pillow pet."  Halle, "No it's not, it's mine.  Aunt Sarah gave it to me."  Arden, "Yeah, but you gave me your bed so all of your old stuff in mine now."  Halle, "No.  It's not."  Arden, "Oh, Halle, just give it to me."

Ski New Mexico - Getting There

We went skiing the first week of March.  We booked the trip about three weeks beforehand.  The ski resort we chose was Sipapu, NM.  It's a family-owned resort that's small, very inexpensive, and great for beginner skiers.  Brian is the only one that's been skiing before, and that was over twenty years ago.  We were very excited to go!  Just the chance for my snow-deprived Houstonian kids to make snowmen was reason enough to go.

 We took our new van (by the way we named it Van Gogh) and the six of us (Rudi included) headed out.  Immediately the temperature began to drop.  We knew that the temperature at Sipapu was about 32 degrees, but didn't realize we were going to drive through a cold front with 16 degree temps.  Being the wonderful mom that I am, I dressed my kids in shorts and flip-flops for the trip.  They froze their tails off every time they needed to get out for a restroom break.  I was just acclimating them to the week ahead, right?  ;)

The trip there took about 15 hours, and it was scary! There was freezing rain and snow, the roads were icy, we saw several wrecks, and could barely see out of our windshield.  I was on edge almost the whole way there (probably didn't help that I had several coffees and energy drinks.)  Brian had to pull over several times to scrape the ice off of our windshield.

The snow and ice on the road. This is a four-lane highway.  There's a left lane, but no one dared to drive on it.

   

This is what our winshield looked like for a few hours.  The wipers and windshield washer fluid were frozen and the defroster couldn't keep up.  Brian pulled over every ten miles or so to scrape the ice off.

I will say that even though there is NOTHING in New Mexico to look at, they know how to keep their roads from icing over.  Once we hit the state line, ten hours into our trip, we noticed a drastic difference in the highway surface conditions.  Well, that is until we hit the mountains.  I was a nervous wreck climbing those icy, steep, mountain roads.  The speed limit on those roads is 10 mi/hr for a reason! Thank God we made it to our destination, safely.

We got a mini van!

Soooo after years and years of saying that I would never drive a mini van I'm eating my words.  We bought a Volkswagon Routan and LOVE it!  My kids tell me everyday how great our van is.  So spacious, all kinds of kid-inspired engineering and ergonomics.  I'm just kicking

myself for not getting one sooner.  It's got so many neat features!  Halle is no longer squished in between two car seats.  There is tons of room and storage.  The kids favorites are the triple DVD players; the girls can each watch their own movie (which worked great for our 15 hour trip to New Mexico.)They also love how the automatic sliding doors and back hatch open and close.  Halle likes that you can turn the third row to rear-facing for tailgating.  Brian's favorite features are the fold down seats and Bluetooth radio. My favorite: the gas mileage!  Oh and the cup holders!  There are thirteen cup holders in the car, eight of which are right up front.  We've never had enough cup holders before.  And not just the dinky fold-down cup-holders, either! I also love the triple climate control.  And the back-up camera.  Oh, and that Arden and Jack are now sitting in separate rows so they can't fight!  (that's a big bonus for this family wagon.)

The only drawback:  the backseat is so far from the driver seat that Arden and I can't hear each other. We have to shout and you know I'm hard of hearing anyway.  Halle is our liaison.  It should have come with an intercom system.  :)

Thanks, Jess, for sharing this video with me when I first mentioned the mini-van possibility.  Swagger Wagon- http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ql-N3F1FhW4

The perks of being the oldest kid.

Halle suckered The Littles into giving her a foot rub.  And they loved doing it!  They would have rubbed her feet raw if I let them.  It's fun to them to play with the lotion.  Arden also took care of Halle by giving her an ice pack for her hurt knee.

Notice the neglected toesies at 10:00?  Yeah.  He suckered them into doing his, too.