Spring Break 2011: Joint-Ops

Well, spring break 2011 has come and gone. It was a great week, albeit a long one at times.. with Clayton still being gone, it was a lot of uninterrupted togetherness for the kids and I which was fun at times; trying at others. Our big adventure was a trip to Girdwood. Why is that a big adventure, you ask? You're probably thinking that we do that all the time.. well, sort of. But not like SPRING BREAK 2011!! No siree, Bob, not like this. We trekked down with our friends the Feuchts (and the Sutterfields for the first night) to a rented house near the slopes (the ad said it was within walking distance to ski lifts... not so much. It was like 3 blocks, uphill, on ice roads.. with ski boots, carrying skis and kids??? Forget that, we drove our butts and parked RIGHT IN FRONT OF CHAIR 3! Yes we did). Jenny found this house and managed to get the lady to give it to us for $100 less than her advertised price per night. With such a great deal, who can resist 3 nights in Girdwood? That's right, me neither! We sold it to the husbands (who are both out of the country) by telling them how much $$ we'd save by eating in. Well (sounding very defensive), we did TOO eat all 3 dinners at the house. Say again? Oh, sure, we ate at the Sitzmark for lunch.. but it was LUNCH! We can't ski hard core all day and skip lunch now, can we?

Anyway, the skiing was amazing. It hasn't snowed in a LONG time and with all the sunshine, the snow is kind of melting.. so I thought the skiing would be horrible but it was AWESOME! It wasn't very icy and there were no crowds. In fact, I skied my first black diamond with Jen while the kids were in ski school (where they learned to do parallel turns, a monumental achievement, let me tell you what). Over apres-ski drinks, Jen and I decided that we'd rather ski with each other as opposed to our snowboarding husbands because we challenge each other to ski better while not being made to feel like gutless wonders on the slopes (you can't trust a fighter pilot to be honest about the speed nor the steepness of a ski run). What a refreshing change from the norm! (I love you, Clayton.. I just don't enjoy being critiqued by you while skiing)

Speaking of apres-ski, after our 2nd FULL day of skiing, Jen and I decided to call it quits at 5:00 and grab a table at the Sitzmark, a pub-restaurant that overlooks the green lifts/run. We turned the girls loose on Chair 3 and we had a little refreshment whilst watching the sunset turn the mountains from white to pink to purple to gray. The girls skied in the little terrain park until they turned the lifts off at 5:30 (so HARD CORE!!!) and they joined us for hot chocolates and enormous pretzels (super tasty) - hey, kids need apres-ski, too!! Anyway, Kara takes this huge bite of her pretzel and knocks this semi-loose tooth all the way to hanging-by-a-thread status. She kind of surprised herself because, normally, the loose-tooth thing is a long, drawn out event.. each stage of looseness is LONG and dramatic, culminated by Kara just yanking the thing out of her mouth (why she doesn't do that days before remains a mystery). Anyway, this thing is hanging by a thread. And Ariel says "I have one that looks like that, too". And, what do you know? She sure as heck does! The same darn tooth, hanging out of her little old mouth by a thread. Jen looks at me and says "That tooth has been like that for weeks. She won't pull it out". Meanwhile, the two boys (Clay is 5 and Hunter is 10) start in on the girls "Pull your teeth out!" "Pull it out!!" "You won't pull it out, you're too scared" and so on.. So, Kara has her epiphany and tells Hunter "Get me a napkin and I'll pull it out". Well, Hunter is totally into this and he runs and gets 2 napkins: 1 for Kara and 1 for Ariel. Kara gets right to work. She puts the paper towel on the tooth and plucks it right out of her head. Well, poor Ariel realizes she's on the spot. Kara's bleeding, holding her tooth and the boys are oooo-ing and ahhh-ing over the blood. So there's Ariel, holding the the stupid napkin in her mouth looking pretty miserable. About 30 seconds later, in a very exhausted voice, she says "I got it!".. and she, too, is the proud owner of a tooth and a bloody napkin. Meanwhile, the little commotion at our table has garnered the attention of other tables nearby.. we had the older dad (60s) and his grown son who had clearly been apres-skiing for a long time (!!) hooting and hollering, laughing it up, VERY red-faced (and nosed); the table of barely-21 year old girls offered their congratulations; and then, our sweet waitress brings each girl $1 for their victorious pulls. It was really a riotous end to a very fun couple of days skiing. Add to it a fun winter hike, a few decent after-hours Super Mario Bros sessions and some tasty bacon for breakfast and it was a really fun time. Again, we're reminded of what a blessing our Alaska friends are.

We wrapped up the week seeing the new Narnia Movie: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader in 3D. Kara had a sleepover; Clay went to the water park and the zoo.. I cleaned my house and considered chipping the ice off the driveway (I decided against it, I wanted to leave something for Clayton to do when he comes home, I'm really thoughtful like that). We even went to Palmer and hung out with Mandie for a day and painted. It was a great week off school for the kids, but I'm not going to lie, I'm ready for them to go back :)

The kids and I at the tram, getting ready to rock-n-roll.

Our whole group on day 2.

Kara and Ariel upon hearing they were going to ski school (Kara was OK with it, she thought they might learn to do tricks (big disappointment), Ariel was not very excited)... they did awesome though!

This is Alaska Clay... my nephew Logan was Alaska Logey (the good) this summer.. Clay was Alaska Clay (the evil) for most of this trip. I don't know what his deal was.

Stunning view from the almost-top.

Apres-ski, the aftermath.

Jenny and April.

The girls, minus 2 teeth, plus two $1 from our awesome waitress!!

What kind of mothers would we be if we didn't get a picture of the bloody napkins? I LOVE their faces in this picture.. it is so accurate of the individual extraction experiences :)

Lest anyone think I've lost my touch, I wanted to be clear that I still resort to the ultimate humiliation: playtime and mcnuggets at McD's. It was a long, desperate afternoon that day.. I had no choice!!!!!!