Utah is having the best December we can remember, and we are trying to enjoy every last flake! In the last week, Sundance got over 50" of snow - boy did the girls freak out when we held up a measuring tape to show them that the snow is taller than they are!
Here are some recent pics of us out and about in our winter wonderland.
Chorney loves our winter romps, although she does get a little frustrated with the snow clumping between her doggie toes. I ordered some snow booties for her today, much to the boys' chagrin. It will be an interesting experiment... I am betting she hates them at first but then once she starts romping she'll forget they're even on. We shall see.
In celebration of all our snow, we knew we had to get some new skis, so the Morningstar ladies are proud owners of four, count 'em four, new pairs of skis.
Steve talked me into trying alpine skiing again, so here's WanYing showing off her new powder twin tips alongside my alpine boards. I have to say that this new generation of alpine carvers is total ski cheating - I have never made turns so easily! It feels a little cheap not to have the quad-burning of telemark, but it sure is a lot faster and I have four very fast little skiers to keep up with now.
But to those of you who are worried I have sold out entirely, I transferred my favorite telemark bindings over to new powder skis. And with all this snow, I've had ample chance to enjoy them! Here's a very happy me and Sasha showing off our new powder skis.
Trust me, we both rip.
Chorney and I are enjoying our winter commute into work. My short 2 1/2 mile commute is just the perfect distance for her and she keeps up a steady 10-12 mph so she arrives at work with most of her wiggles worked out.
I think she looks very fancy with her Safety Dog vest on.
Here's my trusty pooch and trusty steed in front of the Qualtrics field. The Civia is doing awesome and the belt drive, studded tires, and bar mitts keep us rolling all season long.
And I know this isn't winter-related, but the boys, Steve, and I did go to a midnight showing of Star Wars. It was a ton of fun and we all loved the movie, right up to the point where the 3D was too much for me and I tossed my popcorn. Sigh. My poor brain just can't handle 3D movies. Never fear, I made it out of the theater first and watched the remainder of the movie from the wings.
My family didn't actually leave the movie to make sure I was still alive, but Steve did pause to text me, which is an awfully generous division of attention given that it was the opening night of Star Wars.
Ben competed in his first nordic race of the year up at Soldier Hollow last week. He's in the U14 age group this year, which means that he races a 3 km loop. He finished strong and reported that had a good time talking with another kid as they raced. The competitive mom in me wanted to suggest that perhaps chatting during a race implied that he could have been working a little harder, but I wisely bit my tongue and rejoiced that he had a good time.
Hup hup hup!
He might have gotten a little warm with all that skiing
We've enjoyed a marvelous start to the winter and couldn't be more grateful for all of our snow and free time to enjoy it!
This month we've spent plenty of time enjoying the Utah snow (even when there wasn't much Utah snow to be found!). We finished up the Nordic race season with a freestyle race at Soldier Hollow. It was Ben's first skate race and Sasha's second race ever, so they were both pretty excited to hit the snow.
This was Ben's first year on skate skis and he's taken to them well. He
really likes the speed of skate, although he admits that it's a lot
more tiring than classic. Mom and Dad say that's a good thing since Ben
has more than enough energy to burn!
Ben comes in to the finish after his 2K loop
Sasha ready to start!
Sasha coming in after her 1K loop
February also brought more downhill racing for Ben on the Sundance Downhill Team. This week Sundance hosted a Youth Ski League (YSL) race for kids under 12 from all over the state.
As you can see, Ben totally had his game face on.
The race was a lot of low-key fun with 140 kids participating - that is a lot of little torpedoes rocketing down the hill as they "warmed up" before the race.
WanYing waits patiently for her brother to race (iPhones help with patience)
Here comes Ben looking all Ted Ligety cool
Dad had the brilliant idea (or perhaps made the strategic error, the jury's still out on that one) of giving Ben 5 minutes of play time for each gate he hit on the way down. The idea was to give Ben incentive to get close to the gates rather than swinging his turns wide. In practice we think he just went slower so he was sure he could whack each gate with his pole as he went by. The first thing he told me after the race was, "I hit all the gates! That's 46 gates!" so for better or for worse the incentive worked. Ah, well, at least he was proud of himself and stayed reasonably tight on course.
Our final February racing adventure was an afternoon spent at Soldier Hollow.
First we did a few kilometers of cross country skiing with WanYing looking uber cool (I asked her to make a movie star face and this is what she offered!) and Sasha skiing like a champ on some pretty tough terrain. That gal has grit, I tell you!
And after our cross-country adventures at Soldier Hollow we hit the tubing hill for some real racing! CenterPoint Church rented out the whole facility and we spent a fantastic afternoon tubing with our church family. Nothing beats sledding with 300 of your closest friends and a rope tow to carry you and your tube up the hill.
So, there you have it, all of the Morningstars' adventures racing through February. I would like to say that March will be a little slower paced but who are we kidding?
Recipe for a perfect Morningstar family vacation? One yurt, three days, six Morningstars and plenty of snow!
In celebration of Sasha's Gotcha Day, Sam's 13th birthday, and just because it's so gosh darn cool we rented a yurt up in Wanship Utah (halfway between Park City and Wyoming) for a few days of quiet family fun. It was the perfect getaway. Seriously. Perfect.
It was a mile ski from the parking lot up to the yurt. It turns out that having two adults pack in six peoples' gear, clothes, and food makes for some seriously heavy pulks! I mean, we needed a lot of Pop Tarts to keep this crew going for three days of winter romping! Good thing Mom and Dad are super strong.
WanYing and Mommy on the way up to the yurt
Daddy hauls up the last of our vacation necessities (more Pop Tarts)
You're probably wondering to yourself, "Won't an active family six get bored spending three days in the snowy wilderness in a giant tent?"
Not this family!
We spent the first couple of hours getting settled. This involved a lot of competition over who would get which bed followed by the obvious next step of luring/tugging/carrying the dog into the hard fought victory bunk.
The dog was not thrilled about her place in the top bunk. WanYing and Ben, however, as normal bottom-bunk dwellers, were exceedingly pleased with their lofty positions. That is, until the wood stove got cranking and the temperature in the yurt soared to just short of ten billion degrees. Then we all competed for comparatively cool places to lay on the wooden floor.
We passed our evenings playing games, with Steve's childhood favorite of Water Works topping the list. The girls really like Water Works (or "the pipe game" as it's called in our house) because it's a strategy game that they can play independently. The boys adore the pipe game because early on we established a rule that they are allowed to swear while playing this game (and only this game!). We'll do what it takes to get the whole family to play a game together!
And we spent a lot of time reading. Sam finished up book 2 of the Mistborn series (no spoilers, please, Ben and I are still working through the series!). And we all enjoyed taking turns reading Superfudge aloud. With siblings in Kindergarten and 6th grade, Superfudge ended up being the perfect book for our family - full of zany sibling rivalry and just a little tenderness, just like our kids!
And, of course, we spent time celebrating our fantastic kids! I think that chocolate cupcakes plus plenty of reading time may be Sam's complete birthday wish package. Oh, right, an Xbox would probably be in that equation. Well, at least we hit 2 out of 3 essential elements.
We also spent lots of time snowshoeing through the mountains and enjoying great family time and Utah's astounding beauty.
Steve tries out his new sliding snowshoes (nice job, Jamie, best Valentine's gift ever!)
Admittedly, the sliding snowshoes would be more fun with more powder, but we had a good time nonetheless
We had an amazing couple of days of yurt adventure, capped off by the astounding wilderness stars. My Valentine's gift from Steve, only slightly less awesome than the sliding snowshoes, was an intervalometer for my camera.
Now we just need to figure out how to get the batteries to last longer than 20 shots in the frigid cold so we can make time lapse video that lasts longer than 3 seconds :)
On Saturday we and about five million of our closest friends trekked out to Midway to view the Ice Castles. It was crowded. There were a lot of small, crying children. Mom and I spent a lot of time and energy mostly-unsuccessfully dissuading my girls from licking the ice and eating the snow that those same five million people had already walked through.
And despite the headaches, it really was breathtakingly beautiful. The whole experience was magical. Mom and I followed the girls down aisle after aisle of ice, looking up into blue skies through frosty icicles and remarking almost non-stop about how very unique and lovely the castles were.
We also spent a lot of time talking about how glad we were to be wearing snow pants and boots and shaking our head at the multitudes who seemed surprised that the ice castles were actually quite chilly and maybe jeans and tennis shoes weren't their best choices in attire.
But never you fear, we always returned eventually to the wonder.
If you find yourself in Midway Utah with a couple of hours to kill, we definitely recommend the Ice Castles. Bring your snow boots, put on your childlike-wonder glasses, and go explore every twist, turn, and cavern of the castles blissfully humming, "Walkin' in a Winter Wonderland" to yourself.
Just do your mom's frayed nerves a favor and don't lick the ice.
We had a great ski season this year, enjoying plenty of snow on both our nordic and downhill gear and even in our snowshoes! Ben and Sash had particularly good years as they participated in the Sundance Nordic Team. Not only was it a great outlet for their ample energy, but they even managed to have a good time doing it.
Here are the photo highlights of the 2013 ski season!
Girls day out at the Sundance Nordic Center (that's a workout!)
Sash and WanYing show off their Nordic skills
Sash patiently waits for Mom to catch up
WanYing is (unsurprisingly) more about the fun than covering distance
Boys skiing with friends
Ben enjoying some kicking and gliding with Grammy
The Sundance Nordic Team!
Ben's first Nordic race
And they're off!
Ben completed his first 1K in fine style
Sash warming up for her "race"
Sash reaches the end of the kids' obstacle course - and the treats at the finish line
A winner at heart!
Snowshoeing up...
...and back down again
The kids definitely enjoyed the down more than the up!
Spring skiing with friends
And spring skiing with my favorite 12-year-old
Almost as fun as a day at work :)
Fun snow, fun family and friends, fun winter 2013!
Utah is having the best December we can remember, and we are trying to enjoy every last flake! In the last week, Sundance got over 50" of snow - boy did the girls freak out when we held up a measuring tape to show them that the snow is taller than they are!
Chorney loves our winter romps, although she does get a little frustrated with the snow clumping between her doggie toes. I ordered some snow booties for her today, much to the boys' chagrin. It will be an interesting experiment... I am betting she hates them at first but then once she starts romping she'll forget they're even on. We shall see.
