What's Up With The Wheelers: Skiing and Stuff

A few days ago, my kids asked: "Mom, are you ever going to blog again?" To tell the truth, I was kind of surprised that they'd even noticed. After all, they've been as busy as I have. In addition to school and work, we've had an orchestra concert, the pinewood derby, a school musical, play practice, gymnastics, a baseball game, baseball practice, Daisy Scouts, Young Women, a violin jury, a violin lesson, and piano lessons--all in the past four days. Everybody says that December is busy, but I personally believe that May is worse.

Up until a couple weeks ago, I had a different excuse for not blogging. We were still busy...busy catching fresh powder on the ski slopes.

But with beautiful days like these, who can blame us?

This season we were blessed with exceptional snowfall. Look very closely, and you'll discover that this photograph actually shows a cabin up at Brighton. When the snow is fresh, there is nothing I love more than skiing through the trees to secret places like these.

For the most part, skiing with the family was fantastic this year. Every once in a while, Annika would be a stinker and stop trying. A glance at her tiny skis was a good reminder to be patient: she's still little.

The vistas from Solitude.

Despite the beautiful skies, our family ski day at Solitude was frankly disastrous. While our older kids handled the steep terrain decently, Annika lost control and tumbled head over heels down a black diamond for about 150 feet. The ski that fell off traveled twice that distance. Thank heavens Talia helped rescue both.

Here's Eli making his way down a challenging stretch. I'm still not sure he's forgiven me.

By early afternoon, we'd not only lost Annika's ski, but Annika as well. While I was off skiing with the big girls, Jason took Annika and Eli. When Annie and Eli unexpectedly took different paths, he naturally couldn't follow them both. I later found Eli standing by the ski lift all alone, and asked where Jason was. He pointed farther up the lift and explained, "Dad's riding up to try and find Annie." Nothing like losing your six-year old on the mountain! Fortunately all's well that ends well.

Jason and I went back to Solitude as just the two of us on a different day. Much more enjoyable.

As much as Jason likes skiing with me, I think he likes skiing with his brother Justin even more.

We hope Justin's glad he came to Salt Lake to Ski Utah.

So besides skiing, what else has Jason been up to? Sketching, of course. This one's great because it highlights another of Jason's loves--cycling. Much to his delight, he's joined the hordes of MAMILs (Middle-Aged Men in Lycra), except that he's a Middle-Aged Man in Levis. (And sexier than most...)

Know what really turns a gal on? Gobs of grease. Here's Jason fixing our Kitchen Aid mixer after I toasted it trying to mix some brown sugar that had literally turned rock hard. Sure love you, Peanut Butter!

A closer look in case you find it half as fascinating as Annika did.

One last tribute to Jason. It's not unusual for Jason to head out for a jog at 11:40 at night just so he can close the loops on his Apple Watch.

Moving on to Kara, while it may feel like I spend most of my life chauffeuring, I recently indulged in a guilty pleasure. Life is complete when you can puzzle with your children.

Now for the beautiful Brooklyn.

This cute gal has been busy earning medals by waking up at the crack of dawn on Saturday mornings to take tests for Science Olympiad.

I sure love how being nerdy can be so cool! Brooklyn has found a fantastic group of friends at West. Some of the ones pictured here are Calvin, Jasmina, and Stine.

She also entered some digital art into our District Art Show.

Her creation of the Lyricist, a Superhero in Heels, was beautiful. Reminds me of her Aunt Callie.

This brought a tear to my eye.

So proud of you, cutie! You're a hero to me.

Talia has likewise been up to some pretty amazing things. Crafting is generally her very favorite.

Here are some beautiful hairclips that she crocheted with some help from Alesia.

Alesia also shared this adorable pattern for a fox. Spark seems to think it's pretty interesting.

Working on a tail.

Too cute!

Here's Talia hard at work finishing her mandala. How did I get such amazing munchkins?

Perhaps the most amazing part is how much they enjoy doing good things together. Talia and Brooklyn occasionally ask me to drop them off at the temple at 5:45am so they can do baptisms together. In the winter months, the temple shines so brightly against the deep black sky. We will surely miss having the temple so close during its slated renovation.

While Brooklyn and Talia were performing proxy baptisms, I ran up the hill to the Capitol--also stunning in the early morning hours.

And now on to our little man Eli. Here he is dressed as George Lucas for his third grade living museum presentation. Eli wrote the cutest story fantasizing about how George Lucas invited him to collaborate on a new Star Wars feature.

Eli once again with a pretty cool fish/Valentine receptacle.

After so much school work, it's time to take a tasty break. Here's Eli molding some marzipan. If you shape it into a strawberry, it must be healthy too.