Weekend Ski Trip

I was looking at the calendar and saw we had things going on for a while so we decided to come up to Eagar this weekend. Sophie had a ½ day on Friday so we left Thursday night after her dance class. Matt and I went skiing all day on Friday at Sunrise (ski resort on Apache reservation) while Jo and Sam watched the kids. It was a perfect day for skiing. There is more snow than there’s been in 15 years and it was sunny and warm. Since it was a Friday, it was not crowded at all. There were several runs with no tracks.

On Saturday, we went on a drive looking for Elk. We didn’t see any because there were hunters out but we did see a large herd of Antelope.

At about 10, I took Sophie to rent skis and we headed up to the slopes. The parking lot was full so the parking guy told us to park in an overflow parking a few miles away and that a bus would bring us back. We parked and hiked quite a while with no idea where a bus would come. It was so hot and Sophie was exhausted and frustrated—she really wanted to go home. After almost being hit by a car and wandering too long, we finally found the bus stop. When the bus pulled up I thought it was a joke—it looked like it was on the way to a greatful dead concert—the driver had long hair, was blaring the music and kept on yelling—“Alright” as if it was a party. I swear I could smell pot on the bus and there was a box in the front where the first aiid kits usually goes that said “bodily fluid clean up kit”. Anyway, when we finally made it to the main lifts, Sophie really wanted to go home. We went to the bunny hill and I tried to help her go down little slopes. I kept my skiis off and carried her up the hill a few times. She was not putting any effort into it though and kept saying she wanted to go home. So we went to the lodge, waited ½ hour in line to eat a gross lunch and then we just relaxed for a while. Once she seemed rested, we put all of our excess layers in a locker and I decided to give this one more shot and we went straight for the lift. Suprisingly, she loved the lift and got off fine without faling. We spent the next 2 hours going up and down the bunny hill and she had a great time. I held her hand the whole time but she made good progress. Then we even went up the big lift and did green runs twice. I was so proud of her—she did great.

On the way out, we waited for ½ hour for the bus with no luck. Then a pickup drove up and I recognized the driver as the Apache guy that had been guiding traffic at the parking lot. He asked if people needed a ride and all of the people we were waiting with said yes and hopped into the bed of the truck. We decided to join in. We were almost hanging off of the bed of the truck and were crammed in with everyone’s skis/snowboards. You would think that under the circumstances they would have driven carefully, but the spun out of there and Sophie kept on saying “this is my last day to be on earth”. Everyone else jumped out at a different parking lot and only Sophie and I were left alone in the bed of this truck. When all the skis were gone we realized we were also sitting on a bunch of trash. I could just picture headlines reading “mother and daughter missing in Apache reservation”. But fortunately they did take us up the road 5 miles to our car. It would have been no big deal if it were Matt and I, but with Sophie it seemed like such an adventure. I was truly surprised how the reservation really did feel like a 3rd world country.

Sunday Morning we watched Same shoe a horse and the girls and I got to ride.

Last night school conferences. They did what is called student led conferences where Sophie had to show us around and show us all of her work. She was glowing. She really seems to feel confident at school. She is doing really well-Matt and I were proud. We had to fill out a sheet showing her strengths and identifying one goal for the rest of the year. Mrs. K told me that one of the students had written as her goal that she “wanted

The teacher also said that I want to be nice like Sophie R”.

This morning when I dropped off Sophie, all of the Kindergarten classes were lined up to go in their classes. All of the sudden, the 2 classes that I teach on Tuesdays broke out singing the “Buenos Dias” song. It was so sweet. Everyone around was looking around trying to figure out what was happening but they were just serenading me…it was so sweet.

We have this ongoing joke at home. It started because Matt and I kept on finding the same stuffed animal on the floor. No matter how many times we picked it up, it seems like it was always there. So then, we started hiding it so the other person would find it—in the car, in the fridge. Usually when one of us finds it, we hide it for the other person Well, the girls got in on the joke and they think it’s the funniest thing in the world. Ellie hid it in Matt’s drawer but Matt never got around to hiding it again and it’s driving Ellie crazy. She keeps on looking in Matt’s drawer to see if he’s found it and hid it again but it’s still there. The other day, she looked and saw it still in the drawer and said in a frustrated voice “Daddy hasn’t changed his underwear in weeks!”

The elementary school held an arts competition called “Reflections”. This year the theme was “I can make a difference by..” The deadline was early January so during the holidays, I had Sophie draw pictures, take photos and write something to enter in the competition. A week before the deadline, I also made a video of her doing a dance with Ellie to enter in the dance category. Of course the choreography was a very impromptu but so cute. Well a few weeks later we went to the awards ceremony and whe ended up with 2 medals—one for literature and one for her dance. Hers was the only entry for the dance category in the whole school so naturally she won. She was so excited. Granted most of the work was done by me trying to fill out the millions of applications required for each entry but it was worth it.

Trying to get back in the routine

Sometimes I feel like if it weren't for sleep issues, I could have 10 kids. The first week back from vacation hit hard. Mathew was accustomed to being awake from 2-4am and it was difficult to cure him of this. He absolutely would not sleep. I tried letting him cry it out after a while but it seems like he would just cry forever. I one point he cried for 2 hours. The tricky thing is that he was still a little bit sick but we weren't sure how sick. These days are always miserable.

A week and a half later, Jenny and Freddy came down. Jenny wanted to start looking for jobs and Freddy wanted to start going to school. My New Year's resolution of cooking healthy meals quickly crashed and burned as they started making Churros and introducing contraband such as sugar cereal and Sunny D.

For some reason, making dinner is one of my biggest challenges. It is difficult for me to find meals that everyone likes that are healthy. Well, I decided that I wasn't going to let having more people in the house stress me out so I've just been feeding people frozen meals from Costco--Lasagna, tortelini, orange chicken. It's seariously gross to me to eat out of a box like that but why should I break my back making healthy food when nobody's going to eat it? Well the answer is becoming clear as I'm the one gaining weight.