Catch Up

Wow, poor neglected blog!

January has been both a slog and a blur. The kids went back to school, which has been fine. It's less rainy than it was last year at this time, so most days after school we go to the park and screw around with our friends for an hour or so.

They also both started up playing basketball, which is going mostly okay, though again, not sure that either of them has any sort of killer instinct for the sport. Ellie does more running than she did when she was playing soccer, but does a lot of standing around in the key. She did however, go up a level in gymnastics and is really enjoying being pushed out of her comfort zone again - she's back to practicing her walkovers in the back yard, and doing cartwheels at recess.

Adam's success on the court depends solely on how tired or hungry he is (even if we urge him to sleep in on weekends, and feed him right before the game, there's only so much one can do with his noodle arms) but he's hanging in there.

He's also started baseball practice, which definitely feels like too much some days - we've missed more than a few of the baseball practices because they conflict with gymnastics or basketball or piano... or just because everyone is exhausted. The season hasn't even officially opened yet - thankfully basketball will be ending right as baseball starts up. Turns out, these kids aren't two sport athletes, and we are barely hanging in trying to schedule ourselves as a four sport family.

Meanwhile in January we had Tim's holiday party, where the company bought out California Adventure for the evening and set all the nerds free. We got to eat a lot and ride lots of rides, and even though we're old, we managed to hang in all the way until they kicked us out at 1am.

We went back to our hotel and slept for a few hours, then were up and out by 7am so that we could be at Disneyland at opening, and get a spot in the virtual queue for the new Star Wars ride. Our friend Victoria works for Disney, and she generously signed us in and got us all set up for a fun morning on the new Star Wars land rides.

I won't lie, even as someone who has only seen a few of the movies, I was a little freaked out when we walked in and all of the Storm Troopers were there, making sure we didn't escape. Victoria and Rob were fantastic Disney hosts - I hadn't been to California Adventure in probably fifteen years, and it's been five or more since we were at Disneyland, so I joked that I had no preferences, I was just going to let them lead me around like I was everyone's dumb kid. I did however, make them all ride on the tea cups, just because there was no line!

Meanwhile, the rest of the month has been fun 40th birthday parties, dinners with friends and lots of lazy weekend time. Tomorrow we head back to Montana for our second annual Big Sky ski trip. The car is picking us up at 5am, but have I started packing? I have not. Not a single thing. Do we as a family own our own winter clothing? We do not, other than everyone having a parka, and us owning at least four winter hats. Last year I blew out the seam in my 25 year old snow pants, so I don't even have those! And Tim informed me that he'd rather I not try to wear my ski boots from 1997, after multiple stories of friends (and Gigi) in ancient ski boots that broke out from under them. He says he doesn't want to take me to the hospital on vacation, which I guess is fair. I still feel like those boots might have some good wear left in them, hate to abandon them too soon! The good news is that it frees up space in my boot bag for all of the other necessities. Like the velour sweat suit I intend to wear every night apres ski and shower. Please everyone cross your finger that the fourth time is a charm and Adam doesn't vomit at any point during our trip.