We have taken the girls to the snow
many times and the outcome is nearly always the same. The girls LOVE
the snow for about an hour....they tolerate it for another hour as they
become frozen, but they are not willing to leave.....then, soon after, one
or both girls start to cry as they lose feeling in their
hands/feet/nose...etc...we head back to the warm car and all is well
again. After 5 minutes of warming up, if you ask them if they had
fun, they will ALWAYS say YES YES YES....even if they still have
dried tears on their faces! These trips usually end up being TYPE 3
Fun....(see this podcast for the definition of
this...Dirtbag Diaries).
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CLICK BELOW TO READ MORE
After our Christmas in Olympia, we
spent some time at Mt. Bachelor, in Bend. Both girls wanted to try on my cross country ski boots and ski a little with Shane helping
them. We were really surprised at how well they both did. We
already had two sets of skis and some XC ski boots for Alli tucked
away in the attic. Then at a used sporting goods store in Bend, we
happened to find a pair of XC boots that fit Jill. We bought them
on the sly, and tucked them away in the car. Shane and I were pretty excited that SOON we could start cross country
skiing as a family. This was the one activity we enjoyed but never took the girls.
Lassen National Park is about an hour
away and should have at LEAST 7' of snow right now. Two weeks ago
Shane took his science kids up to there for a ranger led snowshoe
hike. A few days before he left, one of the rangers called him and
said..."Better have the students wear good boots, there is NO
SNOW!!.” Since then there has been a little bit of snow, but not much. Right now, the
mountain has about 3 feet!!
This past weekend, Lassen got some
more snow. We could think of no better way to spend our Sunday than
to drive up to Lassen and take the girls Cross Country Skiing for the
first time. We are doing Christmas different this year [blog
post to come] but basically what we are doing is giving the girls
presents all year long, so we packed the boots and skis in our Thule
to give to the girls on the mountain.
We had known there was a chance there would be rain and not snow, but we decided we wanted to go no matter what.
Any time we can get out into nature, it
is worth it. We also love taking long drives together. We always
end up listening to great podcasts and talking about some awesome
stuff. This drive we found a great new podcast I wanted to
share....The Brave Monkeys Speak. Check him out if you want to
listen to someone talk about the environment, meditation and living
your best life NOW!! This guy is awesome. Here is a quote from his "ABOUT ME" page:
"So we're officially giving you permission to do what you love. Heal yourself, work less with more energy, and live better by doing the things that excite you. "
Marshall Moose Moore
Awesome, a man after my own heart. He also has a website
www.adventuroushabits.com check it out if you want to learn more about doing what EXCITES you!!
BUT I DIGRESS....
Finally, after the 80 minute drive, we
arrived at the Lassen Visitor Center. We were hoping for some nice
powdery snow, but we had another Mt. Rainier experience on our
hands.....33 degrees and pouring rain!! The parking lot was snowed
over and Shane had to dig out a spot for us to park.
We really need to streamline our snow
trips. From the time we parked to the time we were putting skis on
ONE WHOLE HOUR had gone by.... this is BAD!!! One hour of our snow
time is used up and we haven't even left the parking lot.
Ok....enough complaining.....we tell the girls we have presents for
them, we pull out the skis and boots and they are super excited to have their own!!
Finally, we wrangle them into their gear and head off.
The only other people at Lassen this day was a group of young college kids doing some outdoor wilderness safety
stuff: avalanche study, survival skills, etc....these college kids
LOVED our girls. Random comments overheard:
- I wish I started skiing when I was 6
- You girls are hard core
- What a great way to spend time together as a family
- Awesome
- Wow, this is your first day skiing, you ROCK!!
Halfway up the mountain, Jill could not
feel her fingers....it is really hard to hold onto poles when you
don't have control over your fingers so we stopped to take a break and
warm up Jill's poor little hands.
Not a minute too soon we find a place
to take a break. Nothing says LUNCH like a stinky pit toilet at
Sulfur Works, right??? We gather under the eaves of the outhouse and
pull out our lunch. Shane also brought his stove so that we could
make some hot chocolate for the girls and tea for us. Drinking
something warm is key to staying warm when you stop. Unfortunately,
we (or me actually) left our tea in the glove box, so we didnt have
anything warm, but the girls had their hot chocolate and that was way
more important.
As we stood in the eaves out of the
rain, it actually started to SNOW!!! Finally, some snow. We all
were soaking wet from being rained on for an hour, but it was still a
treat to have it start to snow. Snow is just so magical and
beautiful. But the warm hot chocolate was wearing off and the girls
were getting REALLY cold so we cleaned up lunch and geared up again,
although we ran into some HUGE problems. My snow gloves were laying
in a puddle, Jill's gloves would NOT go back on her and my liner
gloves were soaking wet like a rag. I rung my gloves out and put
them on Jill, figuring it was better to have wet gloves on than no
gloves at all. I could not feel any of my fingers, but that's ok,
I'm pretty tough.
BUT, even worse, Jill and Alli both
could not feel their hands and so it was impossible to hold onto
their poles. This was even after the awesome hot breath thaw method
that I like to use. So here we are half a mile from our car, both
girls are crying with frozen hands and unable to hold their
poles....how do we McGyver our way out of this mess?
Shane had a backpack on so he could not
carry Alli. She had no option but to just ski and she did the best
she could to hold onto the poles with her frozen hands. After a few
minutes this became too hard for her to do so we took her poles away
and told her to do the best she could. Luckily, she is pretty
coordinated and this solution worked very well for her. She was MUCH
happier once she did not have to try grasping with her numb hands and
going downhill was so much fun that she forgot all about crying and
just enjoyed the ski back to the lodge. Jill...not so happy of an
ending....
It is a good thing I am somewhat strong
and coordinated. And luckily, the entire trail back to our car was
downhill so I did not have to work too hard, I just had to REALLY
concentrate on balancing. In the beginning, I was holding all 4 of
our poles in my own frozen hands, plus trying to keep Jill's skis
from tripping me. But within 2 minutes, one of Jill's skis went
between my legs and down Jill and I go. You can imagine the mess
created with 4 tangled skis and 4 tangled poles and me trying to keep
Jill from getting hurt. She was already quite distraught, but the
fall actually made her giggle!
After this fall, I gave Shane the 4
poles, but we did not really have anywhere to put her skis so they
just had to stay on her. She climbed back onto my back, I held onto
the skis and we continued on our way. Jill's giggles were short
lived as she cried her mantra all the way down the mountain.
Jill: I cant stop crying, I am
trying to stop crying, but I cant stop crying....
Mommy: Jill, do you see how pretty the
snow is? Isnt it beautiful?
Jill: It is so pretty, I really do
think so but I just cant stop crying...I am trying to stop crying,
but I cant...
This continued for the remainder of our
ski down, which luckily took only about 15 minutes. I did fall one
other time and Jill did stop crying long enough to giggle again... We
made it to the lodge and into the steamy warm bathrooms where I had
Jill show me her frozen solid hands (they were actually warm to my
touch, can you guess why???)
Shane ran to the car to warm it up and
drive it closer to the Visitor Center. I ran a load of the girls
soaking wet clothes, jackets, boots, etc....to the car to and grabbed
their dry jammies. By the time I got back into the bathroom the
girls were partying it up. You would never have known Jill had been
crying for 20 solid minutes.
She got on her jammies and went into
the lobby to hang out with the snowboarders who were warming up out
there. I walked out there and one of the guys is saying to her, “You
are a pretty tough kid. If you can handle this ski trip, you can
handle any ski trip! There are some adults who couldn't do what you
did today!”
Jill shrugs her shoulders and says,
“Yea, I'm pretty tough!” This trip ended up being a way more TYPE 3
Fun than we have had before (with the girls, I should say!) and I was half expecting them to say
they NEVER wanted to go to the snow again. But, in typical Johnston
style, when I asked, “Did you girls have FUN?” there was nothing
but a loud and resounding YES!!!!!! from both girls.
We were driving
home at the time. I looked back at them, kind of surprised by their
energetic answer, and they were grinning from ear to ear and Jill
said
“Yay, that was FUN!!!!”
Next Trip -
Mojave
National Preserve for 10 days
BRING IT ON!!!