February 2013

The Evolution of a Ski Bum

I think I’m going through a mid-life crisis.  My mid-life crisis is that I’m turning into a ski bum…and I’m dragging my kids along with me.  We started off the month with a family ski day to Grand Targhee.  Wyatt, Jed, McCall and I went with our friends the Hursts.  

McCall and I at the top of Dreamcatcher at Grand Targhee 

Kai and his friend, Emma, went with Scott Hurst to Targhee the week after that.  President’s Day weekend looked like a promising weekend for some snow fun, so we finished it off with a double-whammy of Kelly Canyon skiing on Saturday and Jackson Hole skiing on Monday.  

Skiing with friends at Kelly Canyon

Before my boots had a chance to thoroughly dry out, I took off to Grand Targhee for one of the best days of skiing of my life with Ash, Abs, Tom and Michael.  

Michael looks tough, but he admitted after the picture that (because he snowboards) he really just didn't know what to do with his hands.

One of the BEST ski days of my life!

 Sisters on the slopes

McCall and I ended the month on a high note with a long-anticipated ski weekend to Sun Valley (I’ll talk about that trip in more detail next month). 

As you can see, the snow at Sun Valley wasn't the greatest, but we still had fun!

It’s probably already obvious, but in case you couldn’t tell, I love skiing!

Wachabe Woods and the Power of Prayer

Of all of the aforementioned ski trips, one of the most notable experiences occurred with McCall when she and I were skiing together at Grand Targhee.  McCall and I were skiing a part of Targhee called Wachabe Woods.  There are three important things to note about Wachabe Woods.  First of all, there are a lot of trees in Wachabe Woods, so it’s easy to get separated if you don’t stay close together (as we were soon to find out).  Secondly, it’s off the beaten path, so if you do get lost, there aren’t many people skiing by to help you locate a missing person.  Finally, Wachabe Woods is on the edge of Targhee.  You have to be extremely careful to stay to the right when skiing down the mountain or you’ll be out of bounds of the lift zone and have to hike out of the canyon.  McCall and I were skiing in the woods with a few of our friends and, when our group stopped to rest, we looked around and quickly realized that McCall was not with our group.  All of us started to call out her name, but we got no response.  After calling and waiting for about five minutes, we decided to send the rest of the group ahead to look for McCall in the Woods and the lift zone while I climbed up the mountain to look for McCall back in the direction that we had come.  If our friends found McCall, they were supposed to send me a text message to let me know that they had located her.  By this point in time, I was starting to get a little frantic.  I quickly took off my skis and started to make my way up the mountain.  I soon found out how difficult this endeavor would be.  Wachabe Woods was buried in waist deep powder and the going was slow.  I took off my coat to use as a “body snowshoe” and to help me get some purchase through the powder.  Every five feet or so I called out McCall’s name as loudly as I could…and heard nothing.  Finally, after fifteen minutes or so, I decided that my uphill climb was fruitless.  Surely my group of friends had found McCall and their text message just hadn’t come through because of patchy mountain cell phone coverage.  I decided that I would head back down to the lift.  Fortunately, before I started to head back down, I decided to take my problem to the Lord.  There in the powder and the trees, I got down on my knees and prayed to Heavenly Father to please help me find my daughter.  The lifts closed in half an hour and I knew I didn’t have much time.  As I finished my prayer, I felt the distinct impression to continue making my way up the hill to a little rise and to call McCall’s name one more time.  My initial response to this impression was, “No – I don’t want to keep going up this hill!”  I was sweating bullets from making my way through the powder and I truly felt that there was no possible way that McCall wouldn’t have heard me calling for her by that point in time.  Nevertheless, I knew that I needed to act on the prompting I had received.  I slowly made my way up to the rise and let out one last ear-splitting yell.  It was then that I heard, way off in the distance, McCall call out in between sobs, “MOM!”  I can’t begin to tell you the gratitude and love I felt at that moment to my Heavenly Father for answering my prayer.  As it turns out, McCall had had her own prayer answered at about the same time I had had mine answered.  McCall’s ski had come off as she was skiing through the Woods and, because of the waist-deep powder, had been unable to get it back on by herself.  (Anyone who had lost a ski in deep powder knows what I’m talking about.)  After trying and trying to get her ski back on and feeling like she had been abandoned by everyone in our group, she finally knelt down in prayer and asked her Heavenly Father for help.  Just as she got up off of her knees, she heard me call her name off in the distance.  That day was a testimony-building day for both McCall and I.  It also greatly strengthened the mother-daughter bond that we share.  It’s an amazing moment as a parent when you begin to realize that your child has become one of your best friends.  I love that McCall and I are developing that kind of relationship. 

We took this picture moments before we lost sweet McCall in the Woods.

Pinkie Pie's in the House

            Meanwhile, on the homefront, Carson decided that she would hereby be known as “Pinkie Pie.”  She’s not kidding either.  All of her papers from preschool come home with Pinkie Pie written on the top.  If you mistakenly call her “Carson” she will immediately correct you.  Carson has also been more authoritative with making up household rules.  As I was cuddling with Carson at bedtime she told me, “Mom, if you don’t come and cuddle with me than I will just come and cuddle with you.  That’s a special new rule I just made up because I just love to cuddle with you!”  That’s one new rule I’m happy to comply with!

Quin's Three Favorite Things

            Quin has also decided to seize the opportunity to make her wishes known.  As soon as she wakes up in the morning, the first three words out of her mouth are:  “Gum!”  “Bobbie (bottle)!”  “Show!”  Those are definitely her favorite things.  Whenever Quin asks for a piece of gum, she always insists on getting a piece for Carson too.  I usually oblige as I feel like if she’s that willing to share, I should be willing to promote it!  After her morning stick of gum, Quin moves on to favorite items #2 and #3 – a bottle and a show.  She’s not hard to please.  That said, Quin has also proved to exhibit a small bit of stage fright when asked to perform.  If you ask her to say or do something that she doesn’t want to do, she’ll close her eyes and pretend you’re not there.  It’s actually hilarious and a tactic that I’ve since taken to practicing myself whenever one of the kids asks me to do something that I don’t want to do. 

National Love Your Pet Day (throw those bones off the deck!)

            February 20^th was National Love Your Pet Day.  We celebrated by taking Texas to the vet and shelling out $130 in vet fees.  The vet was extremely impressed with Texas’ teeth.  He said that she has the best teeth of any dog her age that he’s ever seen.  That would be because Daniel takes the carcass of every animal he shoots and throws it out into the backyard for her to gnaw on.  It used to bug me, but I’ve come to accept it.  When most people have company over for dinner I’d imagine they’d say things to their family like, “Can you please vacuum the living room?”  or possibly, “Will you please take out the trash?”  Not me.  One of my standard responses is “Hurry and go throw all the bones off the deck!”  But it’s all worth it right?  My dog has the best teeth in Rexburg!

All things Scouting...

            As always, scout events dominated the Dewey calendar.  This month Daniel took Wyatt on his overnight ice fishing snow camp.  They caught about twenty salmon and the scouts were highly impressed when Daniel pulled a salmon out of the water and ate it as sushi less than three minutes later.  The boys had their annual Blue and Gold Banquet which was made even more memorable by the fact that McCall planned the entire banquet herself as one of her ten-hour projects for her Personal Progress award.  Finally, we had a massive Cookie Rally at our house for all my Girl Scouts and their parents to kick off Girl Scout cookie season.  It was a full house that night, but we had lots of fun.

Grandma Comes with "Extra" 

            Early in the month, Daniel’s mom came up to Rexburg to stay with us for a day or two.  The kids love it when Grandma comes up because it means lots of “extra.”  Extra hugs, extra books read, extra snacks, extra puzzles, extra games of the card game “War, “ and extra fun.  Mom also helped me out by being an “extra” hand on a preschool fieldtrip I hosted for Carson’s Joyschool group to the BYU-Idaho greenhouses.  It was fun having Grandma come visit. 

Love Day

            Last but not least, Valentine’s Day!  McCall had a cute boy at school ask her to be his Valentine.  She wasn’t quite sure what it meant to be someone’s Valentine, so she said no, but was kind enough to call him later at home and make sure that he knew that she’d love to be his friend.  I thought that was really thoughtful of her.  Daniel had ordered two bouquets of flowers for Valentine’s Day.  One bouquet was for me, one was for his friend Rhett to give to his wife.  The bouquets were supposed to be of equal size and quality.  However, when Daniel went to pick up the flowers, it was obvious that one bouquet was significantly better than the other bouquet.  When he brought them home, we decided to give the better bouquet to Rhett’s wife and for me to keep the lesser bouquet.  We took a picture of the pretty bouquet before sending it off to its new home.  Irregardless of the beauty of my bouquet, I thought it was extremely thoughtful for Daniel to remember me on Valentine’s Day.  

The "pretty" bouquet that I didn't get to keep.  The picture sure is nice though...

Kai and Wyatt had a blast making Valentine’s box robots out of items from the recycling bin (thanks for the great idea Becca!)  

I’m the Room Mom for Wyatt’s class and I had a great time leading his class through games like the “Happy Heart Hop” and the “Heart Transplant” relay.  However, the most loving event of the month proved to be our “Week of Kindness.”  McCall made us each a chart where we had to do one nice thing for each member of our family and then record it on our chart.  Some of our more notable kind acts were:  Kai shoveling the driveway for Daniel, Wyatt sharing a candy bar he had won with Carson, Carson helping me make cookies, McCall giving Quin some of her gum, Daniel watching the kids for me while I went skiing, me going to the store and buying Jed a new ninja/karate shirt to replace one he had lost, and Jed making me a beautiful rainbow out of Tetris Link block cubes.  It was a great week and we all appreciated the increase of love in our home. 

            I’ll end on that high note of love…

 Our "Week of Kindness" charts

Be sure to check out the pics from our continuing celebration of the minor holidays of 2013 here:

Celebrating the Minor Holidays of 2013