Snow and Sleep

Jason's quote of the day, "March snow showers bring May flowers." It has been beautiful here the past few weeks, getting up into the 60's most everyday. The whole time my mom was here she kept saying, "Next time I'm bringing short-sleeves for sure!" JR was excited to see the snow and ran outside to "sled". When he figured out there wasn't enough snow for sledding, he did his next favorite thing....shoveling snow off the driveway.
Don't forget to set your clocks ahead tonight. Ugh! This is one of my least favorite nights, I hate the thought of "loosing" that hour of sleep. But Jason and I certainly know the importance of Daylight Savings Time and time zones. China doesn't have either one, so during the late spring and summer it gets light in Beijing at 4:00 A.M. When we'd have visitors during the summer we'd say, "Now be sure and close your curtains tonight because it gets light at 4:00 A.M." Of course nobody ever believed us (I guess that's what Jason and I get for being so dramatic). And it never failed that the next morning the first thing people said was, "You were right! It really does get light at 4 in the morning!" So, as much as I hate "loosing" that hour of sleep, it really is better than a 4 A.M. sunrise!

Thelma and Louise-Part 2

Thelma and Louise loaded up and headed out this morning. Jason talked to Sherry awhile ago and they were almost in Childress, Texas, where they are going to stop for the night. That should leave them with about 7 or so hours of driving tomorrow. Sherry said they were in a hail storm so bad that a piece cracked her windshield and that they were also hit by a bunch of tumbleweed. I can just imagine the squealing, hollering, and praying that was going on in that car. Knowing my mom, she probably told Sherry "just pull over until the storm/tumbleweed pass" no less than 50 times. All kidding aside, it was wonderful having them here and I'm already looking forward to their next visit.

Spring Training...Or Not

I'm not sure who taught this child how to do this, but it definitely wasn't me. I guess Reed knows that Spring Training has begun because he'd happily play "catch and throw" all day long.

I didn't grow up playing sports, so I'm always scared I'm going to get hit in the head/face if any sort of ball is being thrown around. I did try to learn how to play tennis when we were in China. Anita and I went to lessons religiously (it helped that our coach was a total hottie) and Anita got really good, in fact, she still plays. I, on the other hand, actually got tangled up in the net one time and hit the floor like a load of bricks. You'd think I would have been running for the ball for that to happen. I wish. I was actually just kind of standing (or I might have been posing) near the net and then got tripped up. So embarrassing! Luckily JR hasn't really shown an interest in team sports (like baseball) yet either. Jason will totally have to take that over; my knowledge of baseball is eerily similar to Posh Spice when they asked her to throw out the first pitch at a Dodgers game and she said, "What if I make them lose?" Yep, Kyle continues to take after me. Just check out the video...

Ouch!

I was thinking about keeping this little story to myself, but with my addiction to oversharing and my need for sympathy, I just couldn't keep it in any longer. This is a picture of my knee. Nice bruise, right? I took this picture of my knee today, 3 days after I did this to myself while skiing. I guess I need to stop trying to ski; you'd think with all that soft snow around it would be next to impossible to inflict a bruise upon myself. But now that I think about it, it's really not the skiing I'm having so much trouble with...it's those pesky ski lifts! This time I had an incident getting off the lift. As I was getting off I never really stood up all the way. I was skiing, but I was still in a squat position (my butt was right over my skis). Thinking back it would seem that I should have just stood up, but for some reason I couldn't get myself to stand straight up. I actually skied for quite a distance in the squat position. (Guess I'm part Chinese too.) I finally gave up trying to get up and just kind of laid down/fell over to stop myself. Jason, still laughing and actually impressed at how far I was able to ski while in a squat, skied over and tried to help me up. But I never could get myself back up (I really need to work on my upper body strength). Resigned to the fact that I couldn't get up with my skis on, I started taking them off and threw the first one over to the side. Guess where I threw the next ski. Um-hum, right into my knee. As you can imagine, it felt really great. I was still so embarrassed about my "squat skiing" that I actually didn't make that much of a scene. But I'm making a scene now....Ow, Ow, Owee-Ow-Ow-Ouch!

El Gato In A Sombrero

JR's school celebrated "Read Across America Day" by having the kids dress up as their favorite Dr. Seuss character. Always one that wants to stand out, I was trying to be really creative for "JR's choice" of characters. I had lots of great ideas, but then settled on the easiest costume I could buy online when I remembered that the closest Hobby Lobby was an hour and half drive away. JR was excited about his Cat costume and told me, "Mommy! It's Dr. Sue day!" as he jumped out of bed this morning. I was worried he'd look like every other kid in the school, but he said he was the only Cat in his classroom...he saw lots of other Cats, but not in his room. He said his friend, Leif, was The Grinch and had his face painted green. My mom's reply: "Well, we know you wouldn't have wanted to be that!" JR's still hanging on tight to his aversion of face painting.
And in honor of Dr. Seuss I will go ahead and wrap up my post here since he put it so well when he said:
"So the writer who breeds more words than he needs, is making a chore for the reader who reads."

No Oprah

We drove over to Telluride today, and Jason and I both commented on how different it is than Durango. The store clerks were even less enthusiastic about their jobs than they are here. Sherry couldn't believe how friendly the owner of the yarn store was...until she told us she was originally from San Antonio. But seriously, it really is a charming little city. You can actually watch people ski down the mountain while you walk down main street. We looked for Oprah, Tom, and Katie but I guess they weren't in town today. And if you're interested in a business venture we've got one for you. We told JR we'd get him some ice cream or candy at the candy store. (Durango has about 4 candy stores on Main Street, and we thought having a candy store in town was practically a law in Colorado. I mean what cute little touristy town doesn't have a candy store?) Apparently Telluride. We couldn't find one candy store...no carmel apples, no soft-serve cones, not even a jaw breaker. We drove all the way back to Durango (2 hours) and wound up at Dairy Queen. So if you're looking for something to stimulate the economy, I'm thinking Telluride needs some sweets...pronto!

Yet Another Wild Story

Another day, another ski story. I was really thinking we would get through the day today without any ski incidents, but turns out we came across a major one. Jason and I were about to go get on a lift (the same one where I had my ski ripped off with Caroline), but at the last minute decided to ski down the mountain a little further. As we were skiing over to go down the mountain, Jason noticed a woman lying on the ground. She wasn't moving or laughing (laughing being the international ski sign for: I'm not hurt, I feel like an idiot for falling, and now I've got to figure out how to get myself up again) and she was lying in a weird position. Jason went over and asked her if she was hurt and she said she was. Jason took off one of her skis (she was missing the other one) and she asked him to take off her goggles. About that time the ski lift operator hollered over to us that the medic was on the way. I asked her, "Can we call somebody for you?" She said, "My husband is up there." Jason and I looked up the mountain and Jason said, "What's he wearing so we can look for him?" She said, "No. He's right up there," and she nodded to the ski lift. We hadn't noticed, but the ski lift was stopped and sure enough there was a man sitting on the ski lift right above us. She then said, "I fell from the lift, and I'm hurt." About this time they started the lift again and her husband said, "I'll come back for you." He was stuck on the lift and had to ride it to the top to get back down to her. The lift operator came over and said that basically she had never gotten herself all the way on the lift. Which is pretty much what had happened to me when my ski got ripped off, but I had been able to grab on and scoot my butt back in the seat. She had been able to hang on for about 20 yards and the lift was about 10-15 feet off the ground at the point she had fallen. We stayed with her until the medic was able to get to her, and Jason helped load her on the sled. She was in bad shape. She couldn't move her arm, so we think at a minimum her arm was broken. She was also saying how bad her shoulders and ribs hurt. I think we missed seeing her fall from the lift by seconds, which I'm so glad I didn't see, and I will definitely be more careful when getting on the lifts from now on!