Samuel and Ezra spent some time jumping into the water, prepping for later cliff jumping I'm sure.
Splast!
Splish splash they were taking a bath
Meanwhile and for the first time, Evie and Noah were playing in adjacent the lap pool. I had gone over there to swim some laps after getting bored. Terry and Noah joined me after a while for some basketball and jumping off the diving board. Then I came over and did some diving too, but dude, that board was so springy that all I did was belly flop. Ha ha
Getting her back for those bunny ears.
Rewind to the beginning of that week. Terry was going to go for a run with Luna one morning and I thought it would be a good time to cut her overlong toenails so her running stride could grind down the rough edges. But in my hurry I cut too deep and she bled a lot.
Sadly I had to keep that washcloth bandaid on her foot all day. Three weeks later her nails need clipped again but I'm so scared to do it!
That evening Noah's BB gun finally came in the mail!
A couple days later I felt quite adventurous and decided to take all the kids to the library and then the grocery store. Usually the library is no problem but spending an hour in Safeway with four kids was not fun. We did get 68 books that day!
I think the littles had a good time "driving" their car cart, but the rest of us did not enjoy ourselves. Evie's face says it all. She makes me laugh a lot!
We go through so much fruit every week.
I made an incredibly healthy meal that evening so my veggies didn't go bad but I just knew my kids wouldn't even like it.
And they certainly didn't care for it. But I did. I had such healthy lunches for a week.
I feel like yelling this at the kids all the time. :D
At small group the Tuesday after the Box Maze and our hike, we somehow got to talking about skiing; all about how we used to go all the time and still I wasn't any good but Terry was amazing. We went at least four or five times with our Gburg students, but hadn't been since we'd moved back in 2012. When Faith's homeschool group had some openings that week she invited to accompany them Thursday, March 1.
Terry took the day off from work so we could take all the kids but Ezra and teach them how to ski (my parents graciously took Ezra the night before on last minute notice because he couldn't come). Both of our expectations of their abilities were pretty low. So first off, Terry and I accompanied the kids to ski school, which was pretty difficult for them. And boy was it hot out! The high that day was nearly 50. All my layers were making me sweat like crazy. I went in to take a layer off and when I returned all the kids were at the magic carpet. Off they went! That's Samuel doing the pizza.
Terry and I spent the whole morning on the bunny slope with the kids. Samuel was so cute how he squatted down initially.
Noah had a difficulty going down the first time since he didn't have an instructor right next to him. But the second time went better until it was quickly no problem for him.
More of Samuel doing pizza. All the kids just went over and over up that carpet and down the teeny little slope.
Here Samuel had it pretty figured out.
Thankfully Noah's angst turned to smiles.
After about a couple hours we went inside for lunch and when we came back out I thought it was time to try the smallest ski lift and green slope. So there goes me and Evie. Our first run did not go well. Thankfully Zoe was along with us so she could help me encourage and pick up Evie. She was rather heartbroken and only wanted to stay on the bunny slope after that.
Terry stayed on the bunny hill a while longer but soon we all were up on the ski lift.
Noah was just zipping around that little hill so I encouraged Terry to take him up the ski lift. He is a much better teacher than me, plain and simple. He's better with instructions. I always trip up over my words so if ever we play a game, it's Terry who explains it.
Noah did amazingly well on his first run! I was seriously so impressed. We both were and told him how proud we were.
Meanwhile Evie was just plodding along on, all bummed out. I again encouraged Terry to take her up by himself and it worked like a charm. It was a night and day run from her first time with me. She hardly fell at all!
I mean, look at that! She's better than me!
After that Terry and I had a lot more freedom to ride up the ski lift with the two olders.
It was great fun.
Finally we thought even Samuel could handle a trip up the big hill.
Here they are from behind. Such cute little legs and skis.
And he did great! Well, mostly. He went down two times and fell more than the olders but overall, I was so impressed.
He would get fearful and forget how to pizza or he wouldn't obey our instructions about how to turn down the hill. Turning scared him like it has scared me for years. I felt like I made some progress this time out, but at the end of the day Samuel just preferred to ride the magic carpet over and over.
Going down the big hill like a big boy.
I especially love this video of him cruising along through the trees.
The last hour before 3pm was spent in an almost frantic race up and down the mountain to go as much as we could. Evie ditched me to go up with Henry this time. :D
Henry has skied every year for some time and already once this winter for a couple days in Colorado so he's an old pro. Evie really wanted to keep up with him and the other boys.
One of the last runs up Evie accompanied Faith and Norah. Such cuties.
Terry in front of me just chillin out.
Henry and Denise's boys kept flying through these little side passages and once at the end Noah thought he'd try it. Too bad he got stuck. He was so embarrassed, the poor guy. But hey, I wouldn't have been able to do it!
The one time all four of us went up together Samuel fell down at the entrance to the magic carpet and couldn't get up. We had friends standing right there but no one noticed him. Poor guy. No one helped him up for several minutes but once he was on his skis he just kept going.
One of our last trips down. Look at Noah and Evie zoom around.
Faith offered to take our family photo once they closed the lifts.
We had an amazing day and were so thankful we got to go! But we were incredibly tired that night, like ridiculously tired. We all went to bed at 7:30pm!
For the final night of the Box Maze, I arranged for all four of our kids to be at the grandparents for two nights in order to get them some quality grandparent time and for get us rested up after such a busy week. Samuel and Ezra went to the ranch and Noah and Evie went to my folks with enough time for Terry and I to eat dinner alone together Friday night. At Culvers. Where the kids would go. Ha! But we didn't have much time. Next we went to the church early to patch up the maze a little, ran kids through the maze, tore it apart, carried all the cardboard outside, cleaned up, and set up the sanctuary for church in two days. Terry and I got home from the Box Maze late, maybe 10:45pm, and we slept pretty hard. The next morning we were able to sleep in since we had no kids to worry about! Next we went to the Colonial House for a quality breakfast. I had begun a gluten free diet a week or two before due to this annoying heart burn/pressure issue I've been having (still am), but abandoned the diet for caramel rolls and all other gluten-full goodness for the weekend.
My dad had the good idea to send cameras along with Noah and Evie to give them something to do in Custer State Park. When I downloaded the pictures onto our laptop they put themselves in chronological order. So while we were eating breakfast, this picture of Bo was taken. Poor Bo is very elderly nowadays.
And sadly, just a couple weeks weeks after they took this photo of Dakota, he died!
Meanwhile at the ranch the littles were eating breakfast while watching TV.
Alice sent me this photo of Ezra later in the day and I couldn't get over how adorable he was. Why doesn't he ever look that angelic at home?
After breakfast Terry and I drove up Highway 16 and 244 on our way to a new hike. I love going by Mount Rushmore.
Right around the corner was a mountain goat in the road!
He don't even care.
After I took a ton of photos he finally meandered to the side of the road...
...where he ate some grass.
We drove on past Horsethief and nearly to Highway 385 but stopped pretty much right across from the Palmer Gulch KOA where we had camped in 2013 when Ezra was a baby to see Go Fish. Across the highway from there is a hike called Willow Creek. I thought we were going to get stuck in the foot of snow that hadn't been driven on, but thankfully the Envoy four wheel drive finally engaged and we were good. We parked at the Willow Creek campground and hiked out to that pit toilet hoping that just maybe it would be open. No such luck. We almost gave up hiking since that field was at least a foot deep in snow. Look at our footprints!
Thankfully the trail itself had been cross country skied by some brave soul and we were able to do the hike no problem, though Terry's jeans did get wet. We followed hike number 8 the entire time. You can see it on the top center portion of the map. It's a small loop compared to the whole wilderness.
We started on the right and came back on the left.
Terry was a trooper and walked in front of me so I could walk in his footprints. That means most of my photos have him in them though!
Here's the first bridge. We want to come back in the summer with the kids to see the creek and little waterfalls that were all frozen and hidden beneath the snow.
Here you can sort of see the ski tracks, or at least the general direction of the trail.
My first jubilant video. I was rather happy to be out under the sun and hiking.
Not far, maybe a half mile, was a hitching post area for your horse...or husband. ;)
Directly after the horse posts was a sign directing us to number eight trail or number nine. Thankfully we stayed on eight or else we would have hiked for like fifteen miles, all the way to Harney, ahem, Black Elk Peak (as we're not supposed to call it).
I had to crawl under this fallen tree due to my camelback.
The entire first half of the hike climbs up and up until you're not sure where you are, but you're up high.
Another bridge at about the halfway point.
I was there!
Shortly after the high point the trees opened up.
This was a big long field that we climbed up and through.
Looking back.
Looking ahead.
Walking through that field...
...and up a little farther.
When we had gone a little further I looked back and could see Harney/Black Elk Peak, highest point east of the Rockies!
Just about when we were about to go down we found this cool rock. "Terry, stand on that rock." Selfie.
Terry on the rock. :)
Black Elk Peak behind him.
Zoom.
From there the trail descended back towards the highway.
We were up high and not as protected so the wind was really hitting us. This was the only time I started to get cold.
Meanwhile the kids were on the wildlife loop in Custer State Park, where we went for our staycation in 2016. My parents go there all the time.
See, Noah was there!
Back to our descending trail. Isn't that just gorgeous?!
The answer is, yes. Yes it is.
Keep following them signs.
There was some burning in the hills that day, probably brush piles.
Here's a much better picture of the skier's tracks.
Buffalo, buffalo.
Pronghorn.
Another buffalo right on the road!
"Terry, go stand on that rock too!"
I did not tell him to make a little snowman...
But that's what he did. Ha ha.
We saw about three deer. Here are the first two. They were a good 100 yards away but my awesome new camera captured them so well! Squee!
There were such cool granite rocks throughout the hike.
Tracks and rocks.
To our left or south were the Needles.
More buffalo from Noah and Evie.
Funny clumpy rocks. But I mean, seriously, how cool are they all covered in snow?!
"The road goes every on and on, down from the door where it began..."
Terry grabbed that stick to defend me from a mountain lion, should one appear. :D
We didn't see a mountain lion, but we did scare another deer. Frolic and jump, deer!
Such cool snow. I love hiking in the snow.
Finally climbing back down the hill to where we began. That's the pit toilet we started out at!
Made it.
Terry reading the map with Black Elk Peak behind him.
One more selfie :)
See? His pants got rather wet.
My Garmin watch didn't finally start GPS tracking until we were nearly a mile in. So even though the sign said it was a two mile loop, I think it was at least three.
The rest of that day was spent driving through Custer State Park and on into Rapid where we stopped for a coffee and peeked into Open Suitcase, a local store supporting impoverished Christians around the world. Then we went to see Black Panther, though Terry was crazy tired. The Box Maze caught up with him and all he wanted to do was go home and rest. We grabbed a giro on the way home, ate, and crashed.
The next morning we went to church like normal, except I was significantly less stressed out since I still had no kids. Jerry and Alice took the littles to church with them. My folks dropped Noah and Evie off at Parkview before going to their church.
Afterwards we all met up at Culvers for lunch where we had Noah join the adult table since the littles were driving him nuts. It was there I learned he put his French fries in order of size. :D And just like that our magical weekend was over. But it was great and we were so thankful for the break!
After moving away from home in 2007, I became weary of emailing recent photos of our kids to the grandparents. So I started a blog. And even though we moved back home in 2012, I still really enjoy keeping track of our lives!
