Mama's Birthday

We went ice skating at Lloyd Center for my birthday this year and had a blast. I've never laughed so hard, Isaiah was a complete noodle on the ice. He could not stand up straight to save his life. After a while, both kids got the hang of it and Ashley skated by herself. It was a really fun thing to do as a family, but not sure when we'll do it again. I was a little sore the next day!

Here Leprechaun, Leprechaun

Whew! St Patrick's Day came up fast this year, especially since we were on our ski trip the week before. We had to scramble to get our trap ready the night before and the kids were really excited because they thought they had him this year! They continue with the theme of green colored marshmallows and thought he would get tricked by the large one on top and then fall through the paper and get stuck. All he did was take a big bite out of it and got away! Shoot! The kids were anxious to find out if he used the toilet again this year and ran to the bathroom, sure enough green stuff in the toilet! They even left a stool to make it easier for him to get up there. He left a trail of yummy chocolate coins, Lucky Charms, and little cups of green milk. He must have been tired, though, because he only made it to the bottom shelf before he had to drop them off :)

Lost her first tooth!

Ashley's tooth was really loose by the time we went on our trip to California. Everyone thought it was going to come out while we were gone, so the "sub- tooth fairy" was all prepared since Gram was staying with the kids that week. Well, during that week no reports of a tooth missing came about, so the Saturday we got back Papa and I were on a mission to get her to take that thing out. She was going to loose it in her sleep, it was that loose! After about an hour of negotiating, pushing and talking her into it, she pulled it out... on her own! I couldn't believe it! We were almost at the point of just holding her down and taking it, but she was determined that she wanted to do it. The first thing she said after she took it out... "that didn't hurt at all!" Hopefully the next one won't be so scarey! So the tooth fairy came that night, but we had to hang her pillow on the outside of the door since she sleeps with it closed. We were afraid the tooth fairy wouldn't be able to open the door without waking her, because if she woke up she wouldn't get anything :). We read her tooth fairy book and were all set. The next morning she had me look in her pillow for her because she was nervous about what she would find. What if the tooth fairy came and didn't leave anything or what if she didn't come yet and we would scare her off? We looked in the pillow together and found 2 1/2 dollar coins and a note from the tooth fairy that said the when and where she lost it. She was so proud of herself and was very excited to go to school and tell all her friends. We even did "facetime" with GG and GPa to tell them the news (Grammy and Grandpa were visiting for their birthdays, so the whole clan got to hear).

Gram and I took her to her first pedicure to celebrate

California Ski Trip

Brian and I took a ski trip to California for our birthdays this year. We had such a great time and had incredible weather and snow conditions. It's been a dry year down there, but 2 storms came through right before our trip so we got lucky! We drove down Saturday morning and stayed in Placerville, just outside of Sacramento. It was a long drive, but the new car did great and was really comfortable. Sunday morning we got up and skied Sierra at Tahoe. We thought we were going to score free tickets with our season pass to Timberline because when you look online there is a "Powder Aliance" that gets you 3 free days at various Mtns in the NW and Sierra was listed. Well, what we didn't notice was the writing at the bottom of our pass that said "no powder alliance". Bummer! It didn't matter too much, though, because Sierra is a great mountain, it just would have been cool to take advantage of that program if we could. After skiing at Sierra we headed to June Lake where we stayed for a week at the Heidelberg Inn. June Lake is a really small town, but centered in the Seirra Mountains which are absolutely stunning. We had a gorgeous view of from our condo. Monday we got settled, went grocery shopping for the week and took a long walk to check out the place. We ended up walking to June Mtn since it was only a mile down the road. We decided to go in and talk to someone because we heard from the locals that it was a great place to ski. To our surprise we were offered 2 free tickets to go up on the chairlift to the "chalet" and check it out for ourselves. What a view! We were really impressed and decided to take up everyone's recommendation and ski there one day. So, Tuesday we skied at Mammoth (which was amazing) and then Wed we skied at June 1/2 day, which was plenty because we were the only one's on the mtn. We hit the slopes hard and got a lot of great skiing in. Turns out they have a data base that connects with June and we found out we took 25 runs at Mammoth which aren't short! Thursday we rented snowshoes and walked around Silver Lake. The pictures don't do justice for what the scenery actually looks like, it was so beautiful everywhere we went. We left Friday and had a long drive back home, but it was worth it to have one more day in June Lake and to come home and see the kids. We missed them a ton, but we knew they were well taken care of by our parents. We couldn't have taken this trip just Brian and I without their help and we are so greateful for that. The kids have great memories from that week and so do we.

Sierra Mountains

Mono Lake

View from June Mtn



Riding the chairlift from the Chalet at June Mtn to the parking lot



June Lake

Top of Mammoth



6 person chairlift!



Mammoth

Soaking up the sun

June Mtn

Snowshoeing

Spotted a deer!