February

A friend introduced us to a game that everyone except John can play- and we all enjoy it! Skyjo is a card game that we all love playing together and can talk while playing since it's not super brain intensive.

John at preschool making fake snow. I love how he's been able to have a mostly normal school experience this year.

Our big snow of the year haha

It was above freezing so Jim and I still went on our run since we knew there wouldn't be any ice. We were about a half block from home, at 6:30am, when we hear shrieks of joy and fun echoing down the street. There was no doubt in our minds who that was. We came up to see all the kids dressed for snow and having a blast.

We ate breakfast and went right to a big hill in the neighborhood perfect for sledding. It was such a wimpy snow, but we could still sled!

We made a snow jump and got some good little video of the kids getting air. They missed the first part of their school day, but it was totally worth it for the mental break and fun. Especially since the snow was melted by afternoon.

They used every bit of available snow to build a fort.

Mike very proud of his creation. I love that he took a selfie showing his joy.

Snowman/fort, I'm not sure which? 

And a part of our house randomly fell off! Thankfully while nobody else was outside. This event led us to discover that all of the corner siding was not attached to the house with good/any deep screws. It was insane to see how the builders had screwed the corner siding to each other, but not to the house with anything deeper than a flimsy short nail here and there. It explained the trouble we'd had a few years earlier with the siding framing the garage. So we ended up paying for them to secure the whole house and the trim pieces above the windows, then spackling and repainting it. Ugh. Things you never knew you'd pay for.

We went out and had a paint night! It was like a real date night, crazy! Jim's turned a little greener than desired, but it was getting late and we were too tired to wait for it to dry to paint over and fix, so we joked that it was Harris Lake at sunset (there's a nuclear plant there)

Overall a super fun night!

Jim and the older kids went snowboarding again (they leave Tues after school, and since Wednesday is asynchronous they don't have to do their homework until Wed. night. So they stay at a friend's house Tues, snowboard all day Wed, have dinner and drive home, then do homework Thurs morning before 8am when homework is due. A rare corona perk)

At home I got to see that they *finally* put in deck drains! We are approaching 10 months of pool construction...this is like a bad relationship we can't get out of.

Meanwhile back with the kids snowboarding, it was very windy and very cold. Thankfully we had good snow gear so the kids were fine, but the wind made it very hard to go down the mountain and their cheeks were still a little exposed so they took a break until things calmed down.

Hot chocolate makes for a great break

They met up with some of our good friends the Kinneys and Robin sent me pics of the kids so it was fun to be connected!

And at home Katy kept asking me to send Jim pictures of them too. "Tell Daddy I love him"

And John didn't have a message. But since Katy had gotten skittles from the tooth fairy and she shared with him, he wanted to show Jim that he could balance a skittle on his upper lip.

Meanwhile they are ripping up the tile and putting in the drains. A painful process that would never have had to happen if it had been done right the first time.

While the kids took a break, Jim and our friend Mike went down a black diamond together. It's so fun to be at the ski resort with friends!

These kids can go all day nonstop. They don't get tired of going down, they are nice to each other. It's like the beach. And very cool it's called Beech Mtn. So apparently we like the beach no matter how it's spelled.

After snowboarding it is tradition to go to Brick Oven Pizzeria!

Daniel and Janell and sweet little Annie came to visit! John and Easton tried to rival Daniel's mustache. Not sure how well they could compete with that! Somehow I didn't get more pics from their stay, I think we just enjoyed them so much it was not on the brain! We enjoyed having them over so much, the weather was freezing and awful so we didn't have any big outings, but that made their visit all the more special during such a cold time.

Sending our love on Valentines' Day!

We played Skyjo and have decided John is the king of treats whenever we play (so he doesn't feel left out) and he loves being "in charge" of handing out stuff. He does somehow sneak a few more goodies! He made this valentines day crown at school and when we told him he was the Strawberry king he ran and got the crown on!

Loves his brother Jacob!

Katy helped with the shopping list and it took me a few tries to figure out what she wanted: "Makanches" is Mac and cheese.

We rented a house for a few nights on the mountain and that meant that we all could go! Before checkin though, the littles and I went looking for places to play in the snow near the mountain. Since they'd had a warmer spell, there wasn't much!

This trip our friends the Villareals came out to try snowboarding for the first time. Nicole took her friend Kayla up for a run after they'd had a morning lesson. Jim took the older boys in their family down a few runs as well.

We went to the house finally and it was a dream come true. Literally a few hundred yards from our favorite lift, right where you come down the hill and can snowboard to the back walkway. The weather was 57 and sunny, so Katy and John were in shorts and snow boots playing in the stream and in the snow.

It was so hot that everyone was sweating. Mike had already put his lift ticket on his (very warm) coat so he couldn't take that off, but he took off his shirt and left it unzipped. He didn't do it to be cool, but it was so hot! He got some comments from some impressed snowboarders haha

From the back porch I could watch Mike and D go up the lift and shout out to them. So cool to be a part of things even though I was with the littles.

A stream divided the backyard from the resort, so Katy and John just ran all over and had fun in the awesome weather.

Did I mention we all got sunburned? haha

The snowboard terrain park was just to our left and it was awesome watching people do tricks. The first day there were some really good snowboarders doing crazy tricks and people taking pictures. 

There was a firepit in the backyard- we were too tired at night to use it...next time!

Jake and Mike on the lift! I took this pic from the back porch. It was fun to see how long lines were, watch for the kids coming down, and waving to them on the lift. I especially liked that I never went to the lodge, that we cooked all our own delicious meals, and had comfortable rooms and bunk beds. So much more relaxing and vacation feeling than the "cram in every second of fun and then drive four hours home" experience.

coming in from riding for a break.

View of the house from the slopes.

The house had a game room in the basement. It was awesome because I couldn't hear a thing but they were having the time of their life.

The upstairs had the terrain park out one set of windows and the ski hill out the other set.

The thrill of bunk beds for those who haven't had them before.

I finally got a turn the next morning and went out with Jim while the kids were all doing school and John was watching Scooby Doo episodes. This was the whole reason we got the house and it sure delivered. I was able to mostly pick up where I'd left off last year (which wasn't much but it was something!) I learned a lot and can do heel sort of okay, and can go toe to heel sometimes. Still slow and fall, but getting better. I still feel that fear of getting hurt by my lack of skill, but I take it easy and just enjoy being out there working hard and having fun with Jim and it really is a wonderful time.

My very patient husband!!

Nicole took a picture of us on the lift while she was on the back porch.

After I was exhausted, I came back in the house and told the kids to leave school behind and snowboard for a few hours. So off they went while I tried to recover :) The oldest four hang together and take care of each other. It was one of the funnest vacations we've ever had! We snowboarded the next morning too before having lunch (at the pizza place of course) with friends and driving home. 

For Brandon's birthday we had them over for Cathy Stokes' ribs and so much other food we couldn't start to eat it all- grilled corn, sweet potatoes, spaghettis squash, salad, cheese flight, 6 layer bean dip...and we had an awesome desert I forgot to take a pic of- I made a Brookieo, which is a bar cookie that is layers of cookie, oreos and brownie all in one. And we had it with ice cream, then fudge and caramel sauces. Definitely worthy for a birthday!