Mammoth Mountain Adventure

The girls had a long weekend due to the President's Day holiday, so we took advantage of it and went skiing at Mammoth Mountain. Brian's friend from work let us use her condo for free which was awesome! We drove up on Friday as soon as the girls got out of school. We went straight to the ski rental shop when we pulled into town, only to find a line a mile long and no more kids' skis in stock. Arrgh! Apparently, President's Day weekend is the busiest of the year for Mammoth. Fortunately, "busy" for Mammoth is actually not that bad. It was not even close to the busyness of Breckenridge at Christmas time. Anyway, Brian took off to another ski rental shop to secure some kids' skis while I waited in the line to get the adult skis. After about 1 hr and 45 min, we finally had everything we needed and headed to the condo to bed.

Unfortunately, Sarah brought a really bad preteen attitude with us to Mammoth, so we decided to leave her back at the condo on Saturday while Katie, Brian and I went skiing. The scenery was so beautiful! Katie did a great job skiing for a while, but after lunch, her courage peetered out and fear took over. We were about 4/5 of the way down the mountain when she decided she couldn't go any further. She took off her skis and slid down the rest of the way on her bottom.

After Sarah's bad attitude and Katie's paralyzing fear, we almost decided to pack it up and go back to Bakersfield on Saturday afternoon, but I was able to convince Brian to stay and give it another try on Sunday, and I am so glad I did. I prayed like crazy on Saturday night that we would enjoy skiing together on Sunday, and God answered my prayer!

Sunday skiing was great. It was another beautiful day, about 45 degrees and partly cloudy. Sarah had a good attitude the whole day (miracle!!) and Katie was very courageous. I reminded her of the verse Philippians 4:13, "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." She repeated that verse to herself all day long, and she did great. Sarah was also courageous, or should I say fearless! She and Brian tackled some blue-black runs with lots of moguls. I'm just glad she finished the day without any injuries!

After skiing, we spent the rest of the day playing in the snow, making a snowman, and piddling around the town. Then we had a nice early dinner. We played Boggle back at the condo and watched Frozen before bed. It was exactly the enjoyable family time that I had hoped for.

Here is a video of Katie cautiously skiing down a blue slope:

More Paint!!

My time last week was focused on more painting, but this time I did the work instead of paying someone else to do it! I started by painting Katie's ceiling white because it was previously painted yellow, the same color as the walls in her room. Then I painted her walls in a light-ish blue. Brian calls it "Bibbety-Bobbety Blue". I think it looks great with the quilt on her bed. After a couple of days rest, I got to work on Sarah's room. I painted it the same color that I had painted her room in our former home in Cypress. It is a light, bright turquoise called "Tahitian Breeze". These colors in the pictures don't look that much different, but in real life, they are definitely different. We still haven't hung anything on their walls, but that will be on the to-do list next weekend, and then we should be done with their rooms. 

Brian did hang my family portrait wall last weekend, and it makes the house feel much more like home! We also went through the rest of the boxes in the office and I finished loading all our books onto the bookshelf in the playroom, which means we are pretty much done unpacking. The only boxes left are things that need to be sorted through and possibly donated, so they are currently stacked in the closet for "later".

The big event of the weekend was Sarah and Katie's first playdate. Sarah's friend had invited her to go to the movies with herself and another friend of theirs. When I dropped Sarah off at her friend's house, I found out that the girl's little sister and Katie are friends as well. So, I offered to bring the little sister back to our house to play while the older girls were at the movies. It worked out so nicely! The little girls played for several hours, making robots out of boxes. I see many future playdates and sleepovers with this family.