Winter Fun!

This is a picture from the spontaneous sleepover that happened when we were all snow-trapped in the neighborhood. Tyler and Chris joined Spencer and Grant for a fun time!

Grant's Bday Snowboard Trip and Spencer's Skiing Debut

We hit Winterplace again for Grant's birthday snowboarding experience, and Spencer's skiing debut. We'd just been hit by a major snowstorm, so there was lots of fresh snow and groomed slopes. It was quiet with no snowmakers running!

The first thing we did was lock the keys in the truck. While Robert dealt with that, I set Grant up right away with a private lesson and he and the instructor hit lots of different trails. This is Grant's third time out and each time he seems to improve by an order of magnitude!

While Grant was busy, Spencer and I got our skis, and I'm happy to say there was no line this time...not like the last trip to Winterplace when it was over an hour to pay and get our stuff. Ugh. We had the "learn to ski" package because it saves you a little money and includes a lesson, but the ski school looked mobbed. Plus I figured I could teach Spencer faster myself, and indeed I was right. We took two trips down the beginner hill, and since it looked like he had the snowplow well in hand, we set off down some other trails. He had little problem with the chair lift and managed like a seasoned skier. The only issue seemed to be getting up after a fall - with skis askew, poles jettisoned, and a lack of understanding of the whole physics/gravity/downhill part of the equation. I'd try to bark instructions, "move your right ski parallel to the left; use your one pole to get the other; be sure your ski tips aren't pointed downhill...." That was not very effective, he just needs to figure it out.

We met up with Grant for a group run, then promptly lost Grant. After half an hour of searching high and low, I had the information desk folks issue an APB for Grant. I had mentioned my missing child to one of the lift operators, and some time later, who do i see but that lift operator walking up the hill with Grant! Phew!

So at that point, I sent Spencer and Grant out together and they enjoyed a few dual runs before we had lunch and all three set out again. The rest of the day was uneventful, but clearly Spencer is just as hooked as Grant. I think winter snow sports will be in our future. And it dawned on me, I'd much rather do that than wile away time at an amusement park. As Spencer said, it's all the fun without the motion sickness and you are actually DOING something. I'm all for that!

All in all...a successful (and exciting) day!

Grant and his instructor "Josh"

Snow...part deux

Another foot of snow...day two of canceled school (for them, not me) and counting. More bad stuff expected. Argh.

Funny

Me: Grant, what do you want for breakfast?
Grant: Cereal.
Me: Well, you can get that yourself.
Grant: OK, a waffle then.

hahaha

Grant: "My cents don't stay in my wallet because the zipper came unplugged."

more hahaha.

and this email from him the other day when they were off school and i was at work:

"Spencer won't let me play wii because he wants to play alone and so I tried to call but he hid all the phones and was torchering me while I was searching then he ran downstairs and grabbed player 1 and came back up and punched me in the stomach. I didn't cry because I was breathless. So here I am hiding in the fort to scared to come out emailing you."

it wasn't that bad, I swear! This is the same kid who asked me to "scroll down the window" in the van last summer.

Grant will be an excellent writer, heck, he already is!

Spencer's Germany Trip

Spencer has been back from Germany for two days now. Details continue to come to the surface but at a very slow rate! He had a great time, is none the worse for the wear, and claims only to have missed water and milk (plus us....awww!). He spent most of the trip at his great-uncle Franz-Joseph's house, sleeping in a room with four computers and not far from the rooms that held even more computers. He was able to work on his Visual Basic programming while there, good thing he took his huge Visual Basic book with him!!

A nice benefit of the jet lag is that he's going to bed earlier and getting up earlier. He hardly made it through dinner out last night. He was home, in bed, and asleep by about 7:15, then up at 5 am. We'll see how long it lasts since he's normally our big sleeper. Here are two slide shows. One of the people, buildings, sights, and scenes. The other is of the museum exhibits he most treasured.

Mouse over the slide show for the controls to pop up. Or, you can click on the slide show and go directly to the picassa slide show which is bigger.

Great Basement Muck-Out of 2010

Over break I systematically went room by room and organized the heck out of them. Many trips were made the thrift shop and dump (unfortunately). It's a reminder to be really choosy about new acquisitions. One of the areas of greatest improvement was the basement and Robert's office area. We consolidated the storage and moved it all to one area, freeing up the vast majority of the space for better use. Now it makes sense to think about sanding, priming and painting the unfinished walls. We have one area for swings, rings, foosball, and the mini tramp. Another area has the exercise equipment and eventually the plan is to move the Wii down there.

The chief technical officer with his second-in-command, Trixie.

I'm kicking myself for not taking a "before" picture because it was something to behold. A very busy place indeed! But heck, this is where great ideas take root and work gets done.

Here's where the junk ended up - on the back wall of the basement in the workshop area.

More snowboarding

Today we went to Boyce Park Ski area, part of the Boyce Park area owned by Allegheny County in PA. It's about 45 minutes away. They have a snowtube hill, a beginner hill with magic carpet lift, and one chair lift that serves three short slopes. The chair lift was down so the place was not at all busy. Grant got another lesson (cheap - $20!). I got a few runs in, but Grant went for a solid 3-1/2 hours, over and over and over. He got pretty good by the end but I don't have video of the end product, just this one from early in the evening. Notice how he barely misses running into three separate people on the hill!

Even I got a few runs in.