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I just posted some photos from our Whistler trip on flickr. I also wrote blog entry for part of the trip. It’s backdated to 1/21/08.

The night is quiet. There’s predictions of snow. Maybe we’ll make it up the steep hill to our church, maybe not depending on the weather. This week has been busy. It’s nice to be home in bed, warm and ready to sleep. Let us recap some events:
Saturday-
D&D Wayne spent 9 hrs today in an intensive battle with a mindcontrolling dragon. He’s found a fun group of guys who are resurrecting the Dungeon and Dragons days of his youth. The setting has been updates since there were 5 girls under 5 playing around the guys. I joined the fray for dinner. I hung out with two other wives and relaxed while are kids played. I also ate the 3rd pizza I’d had in 24 hrs. I also discovered what Polly Pockets is and how hard they are to dress. Laura restrained herself and only tried to swallow toys 3 times throughout the evening. She’s getting better about her oral tendencies. Sara keeps begging me to bring out her small toys. Soon, I hope.

Birthday Bounce
Sara got to join her preschool friend Ella for a party at Pump It Up (an inflatable indoor playground and planned party production).

I got lost and made us late. Laura had fun playing with a red ball and Sara actually jumped on some of the equipment.
She hung out with her friend Carly and saw an old friend, Jordan who left her preschool this summer. I tried my second pizza in 24 hrs from Poppa John’s (Costco was better). Sara is enraptured by birthdays and presents. She got a front row seat with her buddy during the present unwrapping and stayed the entire 30 minutes. I could not pull her away.

Pilates morning girl time
Claire and I headed to the club without any girls (leaving 4 girls altogether to be cared for by husbands) for a Pilates class. I haven’t done a pilates class since Laura was born. It’s a sign that Laura’s growing up that I can leave her that early in the morning. We got breakfast treats and then headed home

Friday
Movie night
Sara was so excited about movie night. We ordered Pagliacci pizza (not knowing it would be my 1st of 3 pizzas) for dinner. We finished up some chores, put Laura to sleep, and settled into Meet the Robinsons. Sara got very scared with the hat that turned into a robot spider named Doris. She also got restless with the movie. I don’t blame her. While it was nicely animated, the plot was erratic, confusing, and stupid in parts. Oh well.
I got to make a fun birthday card for Ella and had fun using some new supplies I bought like a circle punch.

Thursday
Swim
After a month away from our club pool, I finagled a return visit. Before the holidays, we were going once every week or so. Then the pool got refitted. The one day we came after the new year, the pool was only 70 degrees due to maintenance issues. So I had disappointed kids. Laura walks over to the door to the pool everytime we go by and tries to open it. They’ve been closing the pool during the morning when we normally swim. So, we’ve been stymied. But today we did it. By going between noon and 2pm, I got them 45 minutes of swimming. Laura loved being back.

Wed
Kindergarten tours 2yrs early
Sara does not go to K for another 2 years. I decided to get on the hamster wheel so I could start thinking about things early. I don’t want to be panicked next year. Everyone seems to get panicked about this decision. I can see why. You are picking a school and in some ways an educational path. I toured our local school and was very impressed. I’m interested in neighborhood schools. It’s funny to listen to all the vocab and lingo that goes along with schooling. I asked the principle if there was a glossary somewhere. The answer was no.

Tues
This morning I was in Canada. That was my byline at the evening Deacon’s Meeting. At 6am, we got out of the hotel and said goodbye to Whistler. The roads were icy and challenging, but no noticeable snow. We made good time and the scenery was beautiful. We stopped at our favorite McDonalds for a break and breakfast. After the border, Wayne worked on his iPhone while I drove. I dropped the girls off at school and we made it home with an hour to spare before our appointment with a water contractor. A what? Don’t forget our basement still is torn apart from last years intense rain. This was our checkout to see what went wrong before we recarpet the basement and reclaim the entertainment/guest room. After that, I laid down for a bit. I still felt like I was driving. My nerves felt all jittery. Claire invited me out for a walk with her and the twins. The sun was beautiful and I wanted to exercise. The Olympic mountains are covered with snow. Unpack. Produce minutes from the last Deacon’s meeting. Dinner. Rush to church. Tired.

Can you tell it was an exciting week? We still have unpacked bags and laundry undone. Our lives move fast. But I’m not complaining. God is good.

This was a family/Karen day. That means we tried to snowshoe. The day was sunny, but continued the trend of being very cold. The challenge was to find a good venue.

I thought of this as a shakedown trip for snowshoeing. We knew Sara would be the limiting factor since she was on her own legs. My experience with Lost Lake, the nordic groomed trails near the Village, is that they were far away from the parking lot. I thought we’d use up Sara’s legs just by trying to walk to the beginning of the trail. We had remembered a flat, road that was popular with joggers, XS country skiers, etc. around Alta Lake. So we pulled out our maps and headed to the Blueberry Hill development off Hwy 99. We followed the signs and found the parking lot to Alta Lake park. It was just not plowed. All the signs in this development were vehemently, “No Parking!” We could see a plowed trail known as the Valley Trail. We essentially drove in circles for awhile with our daughters sweltering in full snow suits.

Wayne finally found a place to park. Sara darted out and immediately stuck her hands in the snow before I could put gloves on.

That got us off to a roaring start. She was crying and upset. I eventually got her hands warmed and gloved. Her emotional state was still one of sadness. Not even kicking snowballs on the trail made her less sad.

We ended up mostly walking on the road of this developement and just a small portion by the lake. We did find this dock and the “no diving sign” which I found ironic.

At the end, we were tired, cold, and a little frustrated. It was a tremendous effort to get all our gear together and cloth the girls. It was a beautiful day and all told, we walked half a mile. It was a shakedown.

Wayne was tired at this point. I herded us on to my desire which was lunch at Crepe Montagne. It’s one of my favorite places to eat. We had a nutella crepe, a bratwurst crepe, and a savory crepe. The whole experience was delicious. It left Wayne feeling a little claustrophobic. It’s an awefully small place to wrangle 2 tired girls.

Naps! Yeah! We all napped. Then we got in our cute Westin robes and enjoyed a family swim at the pool. Wayne and I exchanged trips to the hot tub!

The day ended with babysitting. Babysitting Whistler changed the nanny on us. We got Kate instead of Rachel (due to sickness). We went to La Bocca. We had an amazing brie appetizer and split a salmon dish. Desert was a chocolate cake. Then we walked around Whistler Village. It was wickedly cold. We ended up going to bed early for our 5am departure.

We arrived. The room at the Westin was wonderful. We all got up bright and early so I decided to take the girls swimming before the babysitter arrived at 10am. Wayne was preparing to snowboard, but not moving too fast. We breakfasted in our room (with awesome kitchen facilities). I hustled the girls downstairs. We met with a few frustrating bumps getting the girls to swim. I called the front desk for kids robes (which I saw other kids walking around in and thought a great idea) 3 times over 2 hrs and they never materialized. I took the girls down anticipating the promised robes would appear to warm their little bodies. The pool itself was neat. There was an indoor and outdoor hottub. The indoor pool was warmed and had little flaps and cool mini-tunnel leading to the outside. Outside you could see this amazing view of the mountains and watch the steam rising from the water as I tried to have as much of my body underwater due to the cold. Laura and I only did that once. The Westin provided kid sized life jackets (how neat was that). We got to go down to the pool/spa area in a lift since I had brought the stroller. Sara thought that was neat. The pool part was enjoyable. When Laura started to look blue, I hustled us into the dressing room. I expected nice warm showers to bath the girls. Instead, I tried 2 different nozzles and couldn’t get consistent hot water. What a poor occurrence for the spa of a swank hotel. We eventually used that handheld handicap faucet for warm water. Laura kept slipping. It was general mayhem, but I sheperded us thru. Unfortunately, we had no robes and Sara had no underwear (just a wet bathing suit). It was a 10 minute walk back to our room. The spa staff took pity on me and went to find the robes themselves. So we were warmer walking back.

Mom time
No photos from this time. Whistler babysitting worked very well. I felt like I had stepped into the Commonwealth with all the Aussie, English, and Kiwi accents I encountered. Rachel, the babysitter, was from England. She took the girls out to the golf course to play in the snow. I guess Laura was not as happy as Sara to be in the snow.

I went to the Westin spa for an hour massage. I lunched at the Aubergine and had an amazing chicken sandwich. I wandered up the mountain and went tubing for about an hour at the Coca-Cola park. Wayne met me. It was an icy day on the mountain.

He wasn’t able to go up to 7th Heaven since it was closed. We went down the gondola and had apres-ski/tube drinks at the Dubliner. It was only 2 steps back to the Westin to get the kids.
Reservations and an early start are the keys to dining out with kids in Whistler.

We went to the Spaghetti Factory (our 3rd attempt since the kids were born). This time, the wait was reasonable. As usual, the crowds had gathered at this comfort food station. I loved the lobby. It’s so Whistler.

We caught the tail end of this cool show called “Snow and Ice”. We watched the last 5 minutes which was the finale. That was all we and girls had energy for in the cold.

We managed to leave our house at 10am. This worked well. Laura slept and Sara watched a movie for 1.25 hrs till we reached McDonald’s in Ferndale. While it may block your arteries, I’m a new fan of McDs. Clean bathrooms, indoor playground, some healthy snacks, caffeine, and unhealthy but popular fries. These were the things that propelled us up to Blaine, across the border, and up to Vancouver for dim sum at Congquing Szechuan Dim Sum. As always, access is a problem. Parking was difficult and we needed change for the meters. We were at the tail end of dim sum.

Sara and Laura loved the food. Laura liked the greens her Dad ordered.

It was neat to see the Sea to Sky highway in the daylight. We were exhausted by the time we made it to Suqamish and finally the Westin at 5:30pm. Laura had a dirty diaper and had screamed the last 20 minutes of the ride. The Westin was welcoming. Once we got everyone settled, I walked through the Village and got groceries and made restaurant reservations for our date night at La Bocca. We decided to skip swimming that evening at just ordered take out pizza. Avalanche pizza was on par with the Hut, no great, but made a nice lunch for the girls the next day.

This is my second Tuesday of my new schedule! It’s the golden time at home without kids. That time shrunk a little today. It snowed last night. We also got an unexpected gift. A colleague is giving me a free hotel room in Whistler! So I decided to use the snow as an excuse to pull out all the kids snow stuff to see if we had to buy anything. The Ballard streets were pretty icy. I decided to walk to get exercise and avoid slipping in the car. We didn’t leave until 10:30am. Sara was trying out her new boots. We forgot to take her regular shoes so she wore her boots the entire day. Sara learned the meaning of ice. She fell on her bottom 3 times despite her boots. I offered to have her ride in the stroller.

My Yaktraks (mesh and rubber shoe attachments that grip to the ice) worked wonderfully to prevent me from falling. Laura decided to fall asleep. Sara loved running on the snow in the grass.

She would go really slow over the cement and hold my hand. When she got to a grassy medium, she’d whoop and run ahead. We stopped to watch some construction going on near our house.

We also walked by a neighborly gathering. Several homeless residents were getting their food from the Ballard Foodbank and then grabbing a soup lunch at a local church. We walked among them for part of the time. Finally, Sara begged to swing at the park.

I got my own treat and stopped at Smok’n Petes for ham and black bean soup. It was very yummy- smoky with a hint of sweetness.

I spent the rest of the day doing office work at home and some chores.

It is a new year and this is the first Tuesday of my new schedule. I have Tuesday’s off work now. The kidlets are at school and I have the house to myself. It’s a rare and cherished opportunity I have to do some work around the house and professionally that always get pushed aside in the terror of the immediate. So I had a quesadilla for lunch. I was just thinking how good it was. I heated the last miniscule of chicken from the rotisserie chicken that’s been fueling our meals the last few days. Whole wheat torilla with melted mexican cheese. Quick guacomole made from an avocado as the pan sizzles. A spoonful of salsa. The product is satisfying and filling.
I’m reminded of the first time I encountered the concept of quesadillas. Wayne made them for me during a January long ago when he courted me. I was sceptical at first and then amazed. How had I missed this culinary delight? If you knew my childhood eating habits, the answer is easily. Adulthood has been a fun discovery of food. As with many things in my life, my wonderful husband has introduced me to such delightful things.

My girls are growing up. I know this is a statement of fact. Here are 2 ways I see it in Sara:
1. She made a plan. When discussing when we would nap, she decided she would play in her room by herself and then put herself to bed. Normally, she insists on being tucked in. She did this while Laura and I napped by ourselves upstairs. She even went to the bathroom before she went to bed without being reminded.
2. Today she wanted bread with sugar for breakfast. She went downstairs by herself to get the new loaf of bread from the frig. She is normally afraid to go to a different level of the house without company.

The steps seem small, but they are big to me who sees these girls every day.