Lovely Day at Snowbird

This morning, as I took Abi to catch the bus for GMS, it was SOOO BEAUTIFUL outside! 

Last night it was raining hard which turned to slush and snow - it all froze on the ground but the skies were clear and beautiful this morning! There was ice and snow stuck on the trees everywhere

I was a bit in awe as we drove up the canyon, it was so pretty! I took quite a few pictures of the trees. After getting Abi out the door, Corey and I were lucky enough to escape for a day skiing. I'll give some details of the drama getting out the door in a bit, but we are fortunate to be able to leave the kids in Wesley and Lily's able care, until Abi got home and then she helped too. Kids sleeping in our bed this morning - cute.

We went to Snowbird. We took the tram for the first time in our life. There was a sign that said "experts only at top" and I don't claim to be an expert, but I kept pressing forward in the line. The line was kinda long... Finally on the tram - is this worth the wait?

It looked a bit terrifying off most of the side hills at the top, but also so AMAZING to be on top of the world! Wow!

One more pic of Corey before we headed down. . 

We took Chips Run, the blue trail that was the easiest way down. And it was good, I skied well enough. Then we took Mid Gad where we finally met up with Mel! She came up from BYU to ski with us! I had invited her and thought it would be fun. It's also kinda crazy that she left BYU at 8, and we were at the bus stop at 8:45, and we only got in one more run than her. So the reason behind that - I saw that the weather was going to be good today, so I told Corey I thought we should go skiing, just the two of us. After taking Abi to the bus, I was even more determined to go. And the universe tested that determination. It was just going to be Corey and I, since we both still have a day at Snowbird, so we were able to get ready quicky and get out the door. We planned to take the bus up so we didn't have to fight parking, and we were also trying to skip the long line waiting to go up the canyon, as we trusted that the ski buses get to skip the line. So we were there for the 8:41 bus, but I looked on the bus locator and there wasn't a bus coming OR a bus that just passed... so we hadn't missed it, but we also weren't going anywhere... there were 4 buses up at Alta/Snowbird. Hmmm. The canyon opened at 8:30, we waited for a bus, around 9:10, two of the buses from the top passed us going down. UTA said a bus would come at 9:15, but it didn't. So 30 minutes in and still not headed anywhere. After the 9:15 bus didn't show, the next one was going to be, supposedly, at 9:45. We decided to abandon the bus and get in the car to wait in line. They made us turn south, like on the last snowday when we went to Snowbird, but the line was twice as long this time! Ugh... it kept going and going for 2 miles, so I checked the bus locator again and one of the buses we saw going down had stopped at the Park and Ride! "I think it's going to turn around to come back up! Maybe we can catch it!" So we didn't get in line and cut back through neighborhoods and hurried back to the church to catch it, but then saw it going down, ugh. That was so stupid. Why was it going down when everyone was wanting to go up? So then the phone said 9:45. Finally a bus was coming at 9:40, and it just drove past us with a "Sorry, Bus Full" sign flashing across the top of it. Then 10 min later, another bus that said the same thing. Corey said "Should we just go home?" He didn't seem thrilled that we'd wasted an hour and made no progress. Ok. So we got in the car and decided to drive just to see how long the line was, and if it was long, we'd go home. But it was short! So then we went back to the bus stop, to pick up two guys who had been waiting there with us who we did a bit of mourning with as we all got passed up, so we picked them up and had a nice conversation on the drive up. I didn't get their names, but they were from Vermon and ___ and are both retired and come out here in the winter and ski all day with an Alta-bird pass. Pretty sweet gig. Corey was great conversation and we were up there in no time, found a parking spot, yay, and soon were in line for the tram. We waited for that, did Chips run down, and then were glad to meet up with Mel. It took a minute to coordinate and find each other, but I finally called her and then spotted her up on the mountain struggling... "Are you the person on the hill frozen with fear? We see you!" She finally made it down, probably from the encouragement I offered: "There's no shame in doing pizza all the way down. Sometimes you just have to 'toddler-it', and that's ok." I did the same thing on that Bassackwards hill, which I don't love and struggled with when I was skiing with the older kids two weeks ago. We did a few black diamonds today, over on Baby Thunder. The "baby" in the name gave us confidence that we could do it. We did "Baby Tiger" and "Thunder Alley" and it was so fun listening to music again - I love skiing to "Take On Me" - so fun. I shared an ear bud with Mel so she and I were listening to music together. Super fun. We did Wilbere once and that was fun, I like the trees on that one. Then we took Peruvian, which I've also never done before. Up there we went through the Peruvian Tunnel which was so cool - like a little museum on the mountain! I want to go back so I can read what all the descriptions said beneath the photos. And then we went to Mineral Basin for the first time. 

The mountains back there looked amazing - and once again I felt how big the world is. You could get lost in these lovely Wasatch mountains, they just keep going and going. Beautiful. We skied down and took the Baldy lift once and then it closed, and we were stuck in line with everyone else on our way out. Took Chips down on our way back to the car. Back at home, the kids were all alive. They watched Bluey most of the day, and a bit of Ninjago. Then Corey got some work in and I've been watching kids, Wes went climbing with a neighbor, and here we are. It was a good day. What happened yesterday.... I felt sick yesterday but am better. Today I'm better but I was still blowing my nose and doing farmer blows on the snow all day - green boogers, it was gross and I was ashamed, but I had to breathe. I'm feeling well enough that I am able to breath at night, but I do have to clear it out all day. I'm hoping for just one or two more days. I wanted to got to the sauna tonight but didn't. I went yesterday for 35 min and it helped my head so much. I'm going to go on Monday. Yesterday after the sauna I reached a new low - 135.8. Yay, just 10 more pounds to go to make my Goal #1. Abi had a flute competition yesteday. Corey took her to that. Wes had my car - he went to Corey's parents house to do homework, I was able to take a good nap this afternoon with K. It was nice that I didn't have to pick up carpool yesterday, because a neighbor did cause they made a temple trip and invited all the carpool kids. So Lily enjoyed that.

Yesterday another plumber came by - the cartridges are NOT different, one had just had part of it twist up to the top for some reason, probably cause of how we tried to tighten it all the time to stop the water from dripping. They are going to order a new faucet but it will be 2-3 weeks out. That's ok. 

I didn't do a ton for goal #2 yesterday or today - just maintenance so far (dishes, cleaned the kitchen). Going to try and work on the laundry room desk this upcoming week. 

Goal #3 - I think if I do 3 blog posts a day, I should be able to catch up fairly quickly. I have 30 days for Dec-March to catch up on, so 2 a day there, plus the current day will make 3 posts, that will take 15 days for catching up plus 15 current days as we go along with that, not bad, I can do that by the end of April no problem.