Snow day skiing

When we had another snow day that wasn't snowy, the boys and I ventured out for a day at the slopes on our own.  Rudy tends to move down the mountain much faster than Brady, who likes to take his time.  I was a little apprehensive about having both of them without James, but we did pretty well once I convinced Rudy to stop and wait for me about halfway down each run.

Combine adventurous new skiers with the recent Olympics and access to a fairly easy terrain park, and this is what you get:  

February hike

We had planned to go skiing today.  After the bitter cold winter we've had, it seemed like it would be a safe bet that the weekend would be plenty cold enough.  Welcome to Virginia, where Mother Nature's neuroses really show themselves in the spring.  The weather swings from bitter cold to 70 and sunny.

I'm certainly not complaining, as a warm day outside was exactly what I needed to pull myself through the rest of February.  Since skiing didn't seem like a feasible option, we opted for our go-to hike at White Oak Canyon.  This one is our favorite for a lot of reasons, one of which is because it's relatively close by and easy to get there and back even on days where we have other commitments in the morning.  

Rudy wanted to stay and play near the river, so James and Brady continued up to the falls without us.  Always nice to split up for a bit to get some quality time with the kids individually.

Sleep Tight

James and I assume that Jingle could leave if she wanted to...

Hats

I asked Brady to clean out his closet.  He was quite impressed with his hat collection and came downstairs to show it off.  

This bed is taken!

Poor Charlie has lost the rights to her bed. 

 

Skiing

Conditions seemed like they'd be about perfect for skiing, with the heavy snowfall.  As luck would have it, we had the fresh snow combined with another day of warmish (mid 50s) temperatures.  These boys are a little spoiled with the ski conditions for their first two days on the mountain!

Valentines

Our Disney trip gave us just the pictures we needed to create some pretty awesome Valentine's Day cards.  With a little help from Pinterest and the WalMart photo center, we created these cards for the kids' classmates:

We all got a kick out of the cheesy phrases:

You R2 good to me

YODA one for me

I "chewse" you, Valentine

FINALLY - snow!

After quite a few false alarms and pitiful snow days, we finally got a real snow storm.  We think accumulation was somewhere between 9 and 12 inches, which made for some fun outside time.  The kids did some sledding on their own and then were joined by a half dozen neighborhood friends.  The theme the whole day was Olympics with various events narrated and scored real-time by the kids. 

You can see the failed sledding efforts from a previous "snow" storm in the first part of the video; we had more success with this storm!

Basketball warmup

The kids are playing Upward basketball for the first time this year.  Rudy is loving it because the opposing team (every week) includes one of his classmates.  Rudy and Paul typically end up guarding each other, which Rudy thinks is great fun.

Rudy clearly also likes to warm up when there is good music playing.  I missed the best part of it, but you can see it a bit in this clip...he is grooving to the music during his warm up...

Hairstyle

A day of skiing = awesome hair!

Skiing

We finally found a weekend to give the boys their Christmas present from 2012!  Some coworkers told me about an amazing deal on lift tickets and equipment rentals at Massanutten.  I learned to ski more than 15 years ago at Massanutten, but haven't been back in many years.  I didn't remember the mountain having spectacular skiing, but knew it would be fine for our two first season skiers! 

We scheduled a shared private lesson for the boys first thing Sunday morning.  For the hour that they were with the instructor, I rented a snowboard.  I did better than I expected and actually really wanted to stick with it, but knew it would be much easier for me to maneuver and help the boys if I was on skis.  I traded my board in for ski equipment and met up with the kids and their instructor.  She said that she thought Brady was ready for the beginner slope, but recommended that Rudy do a couple more runs on the bunny slope.  

Brady and I took two more runs and then we were all off together on the slopes!  I was quite impressed with how they both did, especially with their positive attitudes.  They were quite patient with themselves and had a blast.  Of course, it helped that it was mid-50s and sunny...it was kind of nice that we didn't have to add bitter cold to their first ski experience!

Brady took two runs on a blue square slope.  He would just point himself downhill and GO, which made both James and I a little nervous!  Rudy was happy to stick with the green circles, but he did really want to try the terrain park.  What?

We could tell that they were both starting to get tired around 2, so we decided to wrap it up.  Our lift tickets expired at 3:15, so we took one more run and were off the slopes around 2:30/2:45, with two boys who were excited to come back the next day.  It seemed like a good time to go...before they got frustrated with themselves or too worn down!

 

We headed back to the condo to clean up and settle in for a game of Settlers of Catan and then the Superbowl.  Unfortunately, the weather did NOT cooperate the next day.  It was rainy and mid-30s Monday morning, with the same predicted for the rest of the day.  We were all very disappointed to miss the day on the slopes; thankfully, our passes are not date specific so we have 5 more days we can go back this winter!

Road trip

Not a great picture, but these guys are clearly all set for our ski road trip!  (I think Charlie was happy to get out of the car at Cindy's house!)

 

Water park

Last year for Christmas, we gave the boys a ski trip.  Unfortunately, the weather and our weekend schedules conspired against us and we could never make it work.  This year, I heard about a great deal on lift tickets and rentals at Massanutten.  When I looked around a little more, I found another deal on lodging.  Two nights in a 2 bedroom condo plus admission to the waterpark was cheaper than two nights in a hotel!

The waterpark was similar to Great Wolf.  We stayed for about three hours, which was just enough for all of us.  Brady and I loved the biggest slide, Peak Splash, but we couldn't talk Rudy into riding it with us.  Rudy was perfectly happy with multiple rides on Country Cooler.

Of course, the ENORMOUS jacuzzi tub in the condo was also a big hit!