Spring Break

We had an awesome Spring Break in Breckenridge. We all went up Sunday night after Hannah's birthday party and were set to ski on Monday. The first day, we all went out, me, Jeremy, Grammie, Adam and Alex. Alex was a bit hesitant because on the last day of ski school Jeremy took him on one last run and Alex fell on his face. But Alex warmed up after a few runs. And Adam showed us that he was pretty solid on greens so we took him on a blue at the end and he was fine.

On Tuesday, Jeremy and I got to go by ourselves in the morning and then took the boys out in the afternoon. They had a great time on Peak 7, Adam racked up more blue runs. Then Jeremy had to go back home to go to work :(

On Thursday (remember that day it snowed two feet in Boulder?) I went out by myself and had one of the best days ever. There was about 8" of powder and the snow kept falling. I started at 8:30 and didn't quit until 3:00. I had one run up in Imperial Bowl where it was so cloudy and snowy that I couldn't tell which was was up, it was very surreal. So I stayed lower in the trees after that. And at the end of the day, I completed my long time goal of skiing from the top of Imperial Chair (notice I didn't say the top of Peak 8, the 500 ft hike was closed) all the way into town. That's one long run!

And on Friday, Grammie and I took the boys out again. We went to Peak 7. Adam was getting pretty solid on the blues, but Alex is still much faster so it's good to have two adults. I think Alex had to wait about 5 minutes for Adam at the bottom of each run. And at the end of the day, we took Grammie over to the little half pipe so she and Adam could check it out.



The sun finally came out (the lift on Peak 7):



Adam and I on the lift:



Adam and Alex on the gondola:



We had been trading cars back and forth to minimize driving (trust me - complicated and boring) but since Ellen wasn't able to come up due to the snow, Jeremy came back up Friday night and we went to Beaver Creek on Saturday. We had a good day until Jeremy did something to his ankle and had trouble turning. So we quit earlier than I would have liked, but still had one awesome week of skiing (and snowboarding):

Hannah's 2nd Birthday

Little Miss Hannah had her second birthday party at Grandma's house:



A Mickey Mouse cake by Grandma:



And lots of doll presents!



Ariel noticed she was not the center of attention:

March 13, 2009

Ariel and I had a very quiet morning. We started out with a spa day for Ariel. She got a bath, her hair done and pink on her toes and fingers:



Then I spent the morning cleaning the house and Ariel spent the morning pulling out toys all over the house. It was a little two steps forward and one step back but it kept her amused.

Ariel and Adam did not play as well as yesterday when Adam got home from school, resulting in Ariel going down for an early nap. And an early pick up and the boys with Grammie this weekend meant that I got to enjoy an afternoon bike ride. The temperature was almost 50!

March 12, 2009

I'm still doing swim practice on Thursday mornings. Today was the last practice of the first 8 week session of the year and we finished up with a 1500 yard time trial. And I'm very pleased with my results, I've been working pretty hard on my swimming since October and I'm seeing some nice improvements. That discipline shouldn't be a problem in my triathlons, running is still a whole other game though.

After I got home and ate my second breakfast and showered, Ariel and I went to Lilianna's house. The girls played fine together, Lilianna showed Ariel how to play broom ball (uh, hit a plastic ball with a broom. again.).

Ariel and Adam played an extremely elaborate game when we got home from picking up Adam. At first Adam wanted to play Indiana Jones and told Ariel she could be Marion since Marion is a girl. Then Ariel wanted to play with Baby so they became Mommy and Daddy. Adam kept insisting that Ariel feed Baby (Baby never got a name, even though at some point Adam decided his name was John and Ariel was Mrs) with the nummie in her belly. Adam also insisted Ariel had babies in her belly, anywhere from 3 to 100. Then they played The Darkest Night which involved tucking everyone into bed and wishing for candy on falling stars.




The game kept morphing, at some point Adam decided he was not the Daddy but rather Daddy's brother, aka Baby's Uncle and he was just visiting. I think that was the most surprising of all, as most of you know Jeremy does not have a brother to be an uncle in that way. Then they found Adam's piggy bank and had several money related games and kept saying they were rich (again, not something I thought we talked about around here). And oh yeah, Adam kept interjecting that he was born in India and used to speak Indian but he doesn't anymore. Ariel didn't contribute much to the flow of the game (there was one small bout of "oh, there's a monster"), but she was happy to go along for the ride. It may have been the longest they have played together without any altercations.

And I was also wondering why Ariel has been declaring for the past two days that Hannah is her sister?

March 11, 2009

Well, Ariel had a pretty boring day at school and taking a nap, so I'll have to find other ways to entertain you. First off, I took a bike ride this morning, even though it was 22 degrees when I left. But I put on half my ski gear and was fine. My left hand got a bit cold. And it was 27 degrees when I got home.

Jeremy has been taking classes at the new velodrome and wanted us to come by and watch him ride. It's something, the track is 45 degrees and we saw another guy wipe out. Jeremy's having a lot of fun with this, I don't think it's something I'm interesting in at the moment.

March 9, 2009

"Everybody wins!"

So said Ariel today when she informed me that her Mommy told her she was going to preschool today. Yes indeed, everybody wins.

We had a week long Ariel break hoping to stop the spread of the plague. Not much happened last week, other than Alex being sick. And I had lots of free time.

Ariel showed up in her Halloween princess costume to celebrate Purim:





When I dropped Ariel off at school, we saw a pirate and a giraffe too. They made hamantashen and probably had some other Purim fun too. Speaking of, Jeremy of all people took our kids to the Purim Carnival yesterday. Neither one of us thinks it's particularly fun but Jeremy did that and then I took Adam to a birthday party at the bowling alley. Everybody wins.

Parent's Visiting Night

Twice a year, Adam's school has Parent's Visiting Night, a night that all the kids can show their parents all the Montessori work they do. Adam still likes the practical life work like beading and puzzles, but he's doing some more advanced work too, like the Movable Alphabet.

He found a picture of a cat and wanted to write, "Abby runs around and around." We helped him find the letters, then he copied the letters onto paper and drew a picture.





Now that we've seen how his does this, maybe we can better decipher the other work he brings home to us. He's getting good at writing letters, but their orientation, order, spacing, logic, etc is still very much open to interpretation.




And while I was scanning, I scanned Alex's Weekend News. I think you can read the whole page...

Consecration

Alex had his 1st grade consecration ceremony last Saturday. All and all, if asked my opinion I would say it was way too long, but everyone survived. Grandma, Grandpa and Ariel joined us (and Ariel probably behaved better than Adam would have, who was skiing with Jeremy). The parents gave their child a mini torah and we had a small Shabbat service.

And then the next day, Alex had a fever and didn't want to get out of bed. I finally took him to the doctor Monday afternoon for a strep culture and it turned out he had Influenza A. All and all, it wasn't to bad, he either napped or watched movies. And then Wednesday we got a call that he his strep culture did come back positive even though he had gone to school that day. And now a week later he seems to be completely back to normal and (knock on wood) no one else got sick.