Sprinter Break!

Last week was spring break for the kids.  While everyone else was heading south, we were heading north. Up to the cabin since, well...it is already paid for.  It had felt so much like spring for the last few weeks, but we decided that we would try to squeeze in one last weekend of winter.  Weird, right?  Winter on Spring break.  Sprinter!  (because "Wing" just doesn't make sense).  

We left on Thursday evening as soon as Preston got home from work.  It had been a particularly rough afternoon of packing.  The kids were good on the drive though, with the help of some movies from the library and a stop for dinner in Logan.  We made it up to the cabin just in time for bedtime.  Thankfully, Preston sensed that I was already at the end of my tether, and took over most of the bedtime duties.  Hooray for Preston! Of course, with all of the kids together in the same room, the actual sleeping didn't occur until a few hours later, but we try to let them have fun as long as they stay reasonably quiet and stay downstairs.  Its vacation, right? 

The next day while Preston was telecommuting from the cabin, the kids and I went for one more sledding session.  The snow was melting in a lot of places, but one of our favorite sledding runs was still covered.  We took a few trips down and then Dax wanted to climb his favorite nearby hill.  I am not sure why he feels the need to climbs this particular hill, except for the usual "because it is there."  Sometimes Arden will join him up there, but Cora has never attempted the climb.  Until now.  She quickly found out that it is not as easy as it looks.  In this picture you can see Dax waaay up the hill, and Cora "resting" (i.e. bursting into tears of exhaustion and frustration) at the bottom.  

 With a little bit of help, Cora eventually made it to the top.  Nice view!

We headed back to the cabin and decided that we needed to head to the store so that we could make some Cadbury Egg Cookies...our first batch of the season if you can believe it.  In the parking lot of the store, the kids discovered some carved bears in a big tree stump and wanted their pictures taken.  Aren't they cute?

 They especially liked the bear that was sticking his tongue out.  They decided to join him:

We made an entire batch of cookies, and not a single one survived the weekend.  Actually, my mom and dad showed up just as the cookies were coming out of the oven!

The next day, Preston and I finally got around to taking Arden skiing for her birthday.  We headed up to "Ski the Beav" on the second-to-last weekend of the ski season there.  The forecast called for clouds and afternoon rain, but it turned out to be a BEAUTIFUL day!  It had been a couple of months since we had been to Beaver Mountain, and Arden's favorite new development was a terrain park they had put in near the Little Beaver ski lift.  There was a tunnel!  Here is Arden, skiing through:

Arden is quite a good little skier now, though she usually still just heads straight down the hill.  I take a few (well, a LOT) more turns per run than she does, but we all meet up at the bottom to ride the lift up together:

Preston had forgotten his sunglasses.  He wasn't too worried about it because of the clouds in the forecast, but with all the sun things were pretty bright.  I told Preston to smile, but he couldn't even look at me because the sun was so bright.  He actually sunburned his eyeballs and will hopefully learned his lesson to never ski goggles-less again.

It is so pretty up at the top.  Here is me and my ski buddy Arden.  I am getting a little better at it, this was my third time!  I am actually kind of sad that I have to wait clear until December or so to go skiing again.  I will probably have forgotten everything I have learned!  I am planning on taking another lesson or two at the beginning of next ski season...I would love to learn how to turn without using my snowplow.  When my legs start getting tired, my tips seem to want to cross over each other...never good.  

We skied ALL day, and were all pretty tired when we headed back to the cabin.  Bye Beaver Mountain!

My awesome mom and dad had pizza all ready for us.  We chowed down on pizza and cookies.  After dinner, Arden wanted to play her first game of Monopoly.  My mom and I played along.  Arden lacks the killer instinct, and I had all but wiped her out when bedtime rolled around.  I had forgotten how long it takes to play that game.

We headed to church the next morning, then pretty much spent a lazy day hanging around inside since the promised rain had finally showed up.  We watched movies, we did crafts, we read books, we played games.  It was nice.  It snowed a couple of inches Sunday night.  I love the feeling of being snug and warm (and full of cookies) inside the cabin on a windy, snowy night.  Especially after the kids are in bed :)

On Monday we headed home since Preston and I both had to work Tuesday.  With all the rain and snow melting onto the dirt roads, our poor car looked like this:

Preston would say the highlight of the trip occurred on the way home when we stopped for some Aggie Ice Cream in Logan.  He always wants to stop on the way home, but it is usually a Sunday or a holiday and the place is closed.  Ice cream dreams fulfilled!  The shakes are my favorite.

Another fun weekend!  This week soccer is starting, and I have to figure out how to get three kids to practices on the same night tomorrow, then three games on Saturday.

Wish us luck!