Shenanigans

I was just having a coughing attack. G ran and got me a drink of water and announced, "I'm a hero! I'm a drink hero! (I thought she said Greek hero which would've been hilarious but drink hero is pretty good too!)"

I just caught Baby L and G playing in the laundry room and said, "no guys." L wagged her finger at me and said very seriously, "no! Bad, bad, bad."

Just told G no more bugging Dude. She smirked at me and asked, "how about bugging myself?"

And Dude has learned to read, which opens up a whole new world of funnies. For example, Bopa was drinking Naked Juice. Upon reading it, Dude walked around sniggering and repeating the word, "naked."

G runs on ice skates. Would you expect any less from her?

Nana was at home with the littles while we skied. They were getting ready to go when she ran back to change socks. G decided not to wait and let L out and they walked down the street. A neighbor stopped them and was hanging out with them, not knowing who they belonged to. Poor Nana. Even worse when she finally found them and called for them to come back, G did but L turned and ran the other direction. How I wish that wasn't such a common occurrence.

Oh and we had a pretty fun time in Bend before everyone got sick! I love skiing. The girls do now too!

Love it when the clouds make it look like the mountains are floating!

A perfectly clear view is pretty awesome too.

Second day of skiing for Dude who is so close to ready to ditch the harness (just has to learn to stop without face planting), and the girls have mastered the bunny hill (M no longer yells the whole way down) and are ready to move on since we have achieved our immensely important goal of riding chair lift #1 (Silly me, I thought we were there to ski. You don't want to know how many times they raced the chairlift back down, got in line, tried to wait until #1, but had to go on #38 or even the last one - #40 - because people were waiting behind us. The lift operators caught on and commented on our lack of success every time but I just wouldn't let the girls hold up the line so we could wait for three more lifts to go slowly around. One tragic time, we let the people behind us go and they took too long and ended up on the coveted #1 and we had to settle for #2. Oh the drama.). Oh and Bopa did manage to lose J on the last run of the day. Their definitions of "go to the bottom and wait" are ... different. But Bopa's goal was everyone surviving the day, so success!

Baby it's cold outside

Still more from Winter Break. We took a quick jaunt over to my parents' house in Bend to play until all hours of the night, shop with Christmas money, go out on a date (hooray!) to see the new Narnia movie, relax, celebrate Ninnie's birthday, and generally freeze our skin off. My dad and Andrew skiied, but it wasn't the type of conditions to take the girls, so we went sledding a couple of times, which was fun. There was a small hill around the block, mostly iced over, making for very quick turns. One day we did make it all the way up to the mountain, which is where these first three pics were taken. Sadly it was too snowy and freezing for me to deal with taking pictures of the action, so we just took a couple of shots by the car. Looks a little chilly, eh?

M was a real trooper. First run down with Ninnie they crashed, face-planted, and generally got snow in every tiny crack that wasn't well covered (turns out M had put her pants and boots on herself and not tucked them in). We went quickly inside the little cabin, dumped out the snow, re-tucked and she went back out and was at it again. A few runs later with Mama, she got a serious face full of snow. She cried until it was brushed off, then jumped up and went at it again. The powder was so deep that we had to carry her up the hill or she would've got lost. Ninnie and Wes kept giving it a go and have some really funky weight distribution issue because they'd never stay on one track. Far from it, they usually crossed a minimum of four different tracks before tumbling out. I'm not even sure how you do that. Anyway t'was fun, and very very cold times!

Back at the Bend house, it was a little more bearable outdoors:

Lovin' Summer Vacation

Just got back from Bend, where daddy had a city management conference to go to in hopes of learning lots and networking more. While he wore work clothes and sat in classes from 8 until 5, we had this kind of a trip:Poor daddy. He's a good sport. I definitely think we got the better end of the deal. Luckily he was able to spend one day playing with us when the conference was over. I was a slacker and didn't take more pictures but we had a blast with Nana, Bopa, Ninnie, and Grandma and Grandpa Smith. Hooray for vacation!

Olympics 2026 here we come!

This last week we went to my parent's house in Bend. We had a blast! But the morning we were going to leave, Jell got up and packed herself:
Meaning of course, she emptied most her drawers in a big pile on her bed. Helpful!
The hope for this trip was that we'd get the girls up skiing for the first time. My dad, the avid weather channel watcher had picked the perfect conditions and was super stoked. Just getting them up there and in all their equipment took quite a bit of doing but we finally succeeded and even got them to their lessons nearly on time. We got out there and were reminded of the blinding nature of a sunny day with white snow all around. We had to go buy sunglasses for Meri so she wasn't like this all day:
She did so great! Her instructor was super nice, and although she never once said a word to him, I think she liked him too. Her skis were so stinking little!
Documentation of her first fall ever:
Oh and she never smiled during her first lesson but she gave everything a try and said she enjoyed it:
And look, she even did some all by herself!! What a perfect pie :)
Sadly, we didn't get any pics of Jell actually skiing because every time she noticed us during her lesson, she wanted us to get her a snack or something else distracting like that. So we watched from afar. Plus I got tired out from tromping in the snow and parked myself at a table with a good book and all our supplies for most the day. But Jell loved it too - her lesson didn't take her to the lift and the bunny hill and so as soon as she was done, she was begging Bopa to take her over there. She didn't even want to take a break.
Meri had told us she was all done, but we finally convinced her after some "warm chocolate" (they don't like it hot) to go back out with daddy. From that time on they were both really hooked. They only reluctantly stopped for breaks when daddy and Bopa's knees or backs couldn't take anymore. I really wish I'd got pictures of Jell with the harness (that's the blue thing she's wearing - it's not a swimsuit) or Meri between daddy's legs, but the bunny hill was a bit of a hike from my picnic table. It didn't happen.
Even though they didn't want to stop, they enjoyed all the food mommy had lugged up there. And don't they look cool? People all around me would laugh and aaaah every time the girls came to see me. They looked so cute and Meri so teeny tiny to be on skis! I guess that most of the time they were skiing down the bunny lift, they kept yelling out, "I got another gold medal!!!!" Next time Jell will have to master turning left. This trip, she could only ever figure out how to turn right. That does become a problem after awhile! Thanks so much Bopa for giving them one heck of a perfect day! Can't wait to go again!