Surfing lesson #1

This was our big surfing lesson with Zeke from Peru. So much fun. The waves may look small but out there the first time they seem gigantic. Can't wait to go again!

Hawaii, just the two of us. 2011

Reed and I had the best trip ever at the Halekalani on Oahu. These are just a few of our favorite pictures there. Love Hawaii!

Welcome to the Cabin

Well, we went up to the cabin last weekend to see about the new bed that was put in and it turned out ok. We wanted it to be the same stain as the wood on the original beds but the guy was clearly about 10 shades off. Oh well, it will be nice to have up there, especially if Austin brings up one of his guy friends. Guessing they are getting a little too old to hare a bed. lol We and fun and rode the new Gondola that goes literally from the bottom of Mtn. to the tippy top. So great to get to sit and enjoy the view, better to go up forwards than backwards. We ate lunch at the summit house and it took a while because it is becoming so popular, so we ended up having 2 glasses of wine with lunch instead of just one. So, needless to say it is interesting skiing while on wine. Whew! I made it down ok though, just calmed my nerves and made me more agreeable with the boys to go down whatever run they chose. Yippee. We came back to the cabin and enjoyed being able to just pack up our small overnight bags and head back down towards home to get ready for the big Super Bowl. So nice to have a place up there and be able to leave all of our ski stuff. Girls night is coming up in March and that should be a blast. I will definitely have something more interesting to write about then.

January

So, the girls are off to college for the short time till spring break. What an amazingly great holiday we just had. January is here with short days and tons of rain, a long month I have never really loved. I'm not one for listing goals, January or not, I always feel that is like getting a syllabus and the threat of accomplishing the goals is daunting. So what I really only try to do is what I shared with Megan once and that is to plan not to plan. I find spontaneous events are working better for me aside from travel plans. I love starting the week with an empty slate and being open to whatever comes up. This way, the things that I end up being a part of are that much more enjoyable. However, this is the time of year I like to take note of the events I most enjoyed.

which were:

• Summer with the kids all home, despite the lack of sun.
• Listening to Lauren's internship old people stories.
• Watching Megan teach tennis to all the little ones
• Moving Megan into Hamilton and getting her room all ready and colorful.
• Moving Lauren into her room for the last year of college and laughing at Reed going back and forth to her storage unit!
• Spending quality time with my favorite son.
• Entertaining Adrien from France and loving listening to him have fun with Austin.
• Spending Megan's birthday with her back east and meeting all the girls she has met and watching her play a match!
• Hosting Christmas and Thanksgiving this year.
• Going to Whistler and laughing with Lauren hysterically when we got lost at the top.
• Loving that the girls got to spend New Years together.
• Realizing that Austin is an amazing skiier and even a better family sweeper skiing down the mountain.
• Totally relaxing for a month with the entire family and having a houseful all the time.
• Cooking with the girls getting grocery lists from them again.
• Christmas morning.
• Conquering Almond Roca, finally.
• Loving Reed's morning runs with the girl's.
• Austin's new car and how exited he was and the HUGE silver bow and green sign.
• Shopping in Seattle with Reed.
• Loving the great dog that Hank is becoming. Good thing he is sooo cute!
• Helping Lauren with her resume and so proud of her.
• Watching the girls with Austin who I know love him so much.
• Still buying Capri Suns for Austin.
• Making Clam Linguine for Austin's 16th for him, Beau and Calvin.

So there you have it. Nothing embellished. Just some great memories that I could come up with in a few minutes. Give me an hour and I would have run out of room. But I have to go see what my wonderful husband is doing seeing as for a while now our family is small and he might be needing a little attention. Love that guy.