The Poetry of Lake Tahoe

Maggie wrote this poem during our trip to Lake Tahoe.

Snow

Snow is fun; it melts in the sun.
In it you play any winter day.
Soft and white, penguin's delight.
Opposite of grass.
Shiny as glass.
Hard to drive in
Unless it is thin.
Build a snow fort
That will support
All those who love
The snow from above.

Lake Tahoe--Days 2, 3, & 4

We got a slow start to our first morning (but second day) in Lake Tahoe. It was nice to have a relaxing weekday morning compared to our usual frenzied efforts to get out of the door by 7:50. We had pancakes and continued to check out all the local snow play offerings before finally deciding to go cross-country skiing.

We found an excellent place to try it. It was run out of a yurt with no phone service (and probably no electricity for that matter).  Adah, Maggie, and I rented skis while Damon intended to just sled nearby with Gunnar and Holly. Since none of us had really done cross-country skiing (I used to downhill a couple times a winter) we figured--on the advice of a skiing friend in Washington--that trying to help the three oldest kids learn and tow Holly in a special sled would be too much for the parents.

It was such a great venue for our family because it was small enough that the car was close enough to go back and forth for food and gear changes. There was a large meadow just outside the yurt for practicing on the skis & where Holly and Gunnar could play in the snow when they tired of sledding. And, it turns out that our leisurely morning meant that by the time we were ready to rent skis we got the half-day rate!

Ready to give it a go!

Maggie wasn't so sure at first. I think she expected easy gliding, not the awkward movement and imbalance she initially experienced.

Gunnar was not so keen on the sledding at first. I never got the full story on his dissatisfaction, but I think it was related to having to carry his own sled.

They had to create their own path, but at least it wasn't as rough and bumpy as the day before!

Maggie eventually got the hang of skiing, declaring, "This is fun!" We mostly just went up a wide track and then came back down it, where we could get up a little more speed, which was my favorite part. I think I prefer the thrill of downhill skiing, but cross-country was still a lot of fun.

Adah did quite well and kept at it with almost no breaks, as far as I can remember. I'm sure she stopped for some food. She did try out poles, which the yurt employee discouraged for young beginners, and discovered that they just got in the way and she preferred being hands-free. Here's what she had to say about the day: "My lips got all sunburned and then we had Chinese for dinner and it made my lips hurt." Still, I think it was a good day in her book.

Another thing that made it such a great day was the perfect weather we enjoyed. It was sunny and quite warm--you know, for there being snow on the ground. Once we got moving we all shed our coats, as you can see.

When I was ready to take a break and eat, I encouraged Damon to go ahead and rent some skis and give it a try. I rested and then skied through the meadow where it was easy to still keep an eye on Gunnar and Holly and their snowman.  We never did pull out the camera again to get a photo of Damon on the skis. He did well and had fun going up and down the same track that the girls were going on. I eventually cut across the meadow and ventured into some fresher snow in some trees, but that was sure hard work!  The skiing was my favorite activity on our trip, and I hope to try it again--maybe with some real instruction.

We weren't so good with the camera on the rest of our trip. Damon on skis wasn't the only thing that didn't get photographed, although we got some great video footage of Gunnar slipping on the ice. Don't worry; he was fine. It's true America's Funniest Home Videos material. He actually loved it and said walking around on the ice was his favorite part of the trip.

On day 3 we set out to go sledding again at an actual sledding venue with some groomed hills. There are several in the area, and some can be pretty expensive with their per-sledder tube rentals; we found one that just had a parking fee. Everyone else must have thought it was a good idea, too, since the parking lot was full when we arrived and we were turned away. High in the mountains, we were surrounded by snow-covered hills. Unfortunately, most of them were also covered with trees. Eventually we found a parking spot in a turn-out with half a dozen other cars. We trudged through knee-deep snow (much deeper for Holly, making her not a fan of this sledding expedition) and cut our own sledding hill, which was lots of fun, but also required careful steering and braking.

Day 4 was Sunday and we packed up the house and went to church. Damon was eager to go since he served 4 months of his mission in Lake Tahoe. It turned out to be a regional broadcast for all the congregations in Nevada (and, obviously a little overlap into CA), but Damon still saw someone he recognized!

Here's the only photo we got of the great house that we rented:

These "animals in the zoo" were really playing in the spot beneath the sloped A-frame roof and a couch in the upstairs family room.

As long as we're living in a non-snow climate, we think that just maybe we'll make this trip to Tahoe an annual event. We'll try to rent the same house and return during next year's February school vacation. As much as I love to travel and experience new places, I've kind of always wanted to have one of those family vacation spots where you return every year. Maybe this can be it for us.

Lake Tahoe: Day 1

The girls got a whole week off school in February and since we missed the snow, we decided to take a vacation to Lake Tahoe.  We found a great house to rent in South Lake Tahoe that had two bedrooms, a large loft family room (where the girls slept), two bathrooms, a well-outfitted kitchen, and a living room with a cozy gas stove. It was a perfect home base for meals, board games, warming up (and drying off) by the fire, and relaxing with movies.

It also had a large backyard--shared in common with several other houses--and we immediately went outside to play when we arrived in the early afternoon. The snow was a bit old (no soft powder) and not great for packing into snowmen, but we made snow angels and found a tiny mound that--with a big push from Mom--was good for a little ride in a sled.

One. . .

. . . two . . .

. . . three!

 

Also good for a penguin-style belly slide:

 

Maggie burrowed her legs underneath.

Adah preferred digging. I think she was trying to create a fort, although it wasn't really deep enough to make much of one. Two days later we went sledding higher up in the mountains in very deep snow and she again spent most of the time digging out a big hole for herself.

 

After "warming up" to the snow in the backyard, we headed out to a real sledding hill. Sadly, though, the one that was listed online was not all it boasted to be and we had to settle for another one that some others had carved out of a hillside.  You probably can't tell in these photos--too many shadows--but the hill was a pretty bumpy collection of jumps and what otherwise might be called moguls. It made for some rough rides that hurt my back, but the kids seemed to like it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We concluded our sledding venture with a coyote sighting. Maggie saw it first and we watched it come across the road and crest the hill from another direction and then cross behind us and away. It looked pretty harmless--not likely to attack a pack of people--but I still gathered the children close to me until it was well out of sight.  And then, as the sun was beginning to set, we called it a day for our snow play and headed back to the house.

The Cycle Begins

One of my favorite things about our new home is sidewalks. While in most ways White Salmon--despite its lack of sidewalks--was infinitely more walkable (everything was close enough and traffic was light), we've found Milpitas to be more bikeable. The sidewalks create clear and safe boundaries for the kids, and there's a park with a pedestrian/bike-only entrance and completely paved loop path at the end of our street. Also, it's much flatter here; some of those steep hills in White Salmon and Bingen were just not conducive to biking--at least not at my level. So, really, maybe it's not the sidewalks that I like so much, but rather all of the things that go together to making it so easy to ride bikes here.

I've long told Damon that I want us to be a biking family. I love riding bikes but have found it difficult to do much of it since having children. I never was never ready to commit to the purchase or physical strain of a trailer, and even if I had a couple kids in the trailer, the older ones weren't ready to ride along where we could go. But, now, the time is here. Since moving to California, Gunnar has become completely independent on his bike (when we got here, he could ride a 2-wheeler, but still had trouble starting up on his own), meaning there's just one family member who'd be left out on a bike ride.

So, a few weeks ago I finally did what I'd been contemplating for months: I bought a bike seat for my bike for carrying Holly. We installed it immediately and took it out for a spin right away. Holly's first words: "This is fun!"  And I was pleasantly surprised at how easy it was to ride with the extra weight. I'd anticipated a period of balance-adjustments, but really didn't notice much of a difference at all.  Away we went!

We take advantage of the bike lanes, too (meaning not just sidewalks). Twice now, Adah, Maggie, and I have ridden over a mile along a somewhat busy road to a Saturday morning farmers' market. In these photos, we were about to embark on our second trip, this time taking Holly along.  It's a bit of a trek for the girls on their one-speed bikes, but they make it and then help carry home our purchases in their backpacks. I'm so proud of them, and they also feel such accomplishment for going on such a big ride and a family errand.

I'm not quite ready to take Gunnar out on the busy streets, and he was pretty disappointed that we were leaving him home with Daddy that Saturday morning.

 

Still, we have managed at least one whole-family bike ride through neighborhoods and parks, and I'm trying to take Holly and Gunnar on frequent rides, even if it's just to the park down the block and then around the loop in the park a few times. We even rode bikes to take Adah to school two times during a week of early releases (meaning we had extra time to pick her up via bike and then come home and get in the car to go get Maggie). Our next step is to get a bike rack for the car so that we can actually take our bikes to other places where we can find longer trails.

We're beginning to be that biking family I've always hoped we'd be!

We love those Potters

How can you NOT love people who mail your children a 10-pound box of mints (with a few Tootsie Pops and Werther's Originals thrown in)?

The Potters are off to serve a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Missouri. Rich is a known starlight mint lover and always had some in his pocket to dole out to my kids. Adah knew just where to find them at their house. I suppose that his stash was too big to pack up for the mission and he had to get it out of the house somehow. When he called to get our mailing address because he was "sending something for the kids," I had no idea this would show up. Hysterical. And the kids love it.

Our Home Preschool

I have made a friend here who has one child in school and two at home. Her name is Deborah. Almost all of the other women that I have met since moving to California home school their children. Truly, there are only 4 stay-at-home mothers in my church congregation (including me) who send their children to public school. (Now, for those of you who know of the troubles we've had with the schools since moving here, I don't need any "Well maybe there's a reason they home school" comments. I believe in public schools. Right now, I just don't believe in the Milpitas public schools.)

Now, when Deborah and I met, I was certainly excited to find another public school mom. She later told me about a conversation she had with her husband about that night: "You should have seen the look of bonding on her face when I told her I didn't home school," she said to him. It's true. It was an instant bond, especially when we found out that the children we do have at home were the same ages and genders! We seem to be a match made in heaven and have really hit it off in many ways. I'm grateful to have made such a friend.

Ironically, the two of us have created our own home preschool. We take turns taking the four children and teaching them about bugs, bodies, germs, volcanoes, dolphins, shapes, otters, beavers, bears, and whatever else we choose. One morning a week they are all at my house and on another morning they go to Deborah's. The non-teacher gets 3-4 hours to herself, and the teacher & kiddos have an excellent time reading stories, doing crafts, and then just playing. We really only spend an hour or so on actual organized preschool time, typically. Then they play.  And, for the most part, everyone gets along and it's a great time.

I really enjoy doing the home preschool. I'm definitely not ready to jump onto the full-time home school bandwagon of Milpitas Mormon women, but doing it just for preschool where I have no curriculum constraints and I really can become an authority on the subject matter is fun. I can tell, though, that I'm only up for it once a week. I commend the families that home school their children and have to keep on top of multiple ages and educational assignments every day.

Here are Holly and Gunnar with their classmates, Mason and Danielle, as we were getting ready to have our own volcanic eruption.

We just used the classic baking soda and vinegar combination, but also added dish soap as then the all the gas is caught in bubbles and makes the whole reaction more visible.

And we put in red food coloring to make it look more like lava. Unfortunately, we didn't put in enough and it was just pink--kind of like Pepto Bismol, I guess. Pink, though, is the favorite color of the two little girls, so it was perfect. Really, they color EVERYTHING pink.

Back inside, they made volcano collages with construction paper and tissue paper.

 

 

Now that Holly has finished her gluing, she'll add some decorative touches with a pink crayon, of course:

On another day, we studied bears. We focused on the three bears in North America: black bears, grizzly bears, and polar bears. We learned about their hibernation habits (only female polar bears hibernate), eating habits (salmon, moths, & more), and physical differences (grizzlies have shoulder humps and are bigger than black bears; polars bears are biggest of all). The kiddos all brought a favorite teddy bear to school that day, and for lunch they had a "teddy bear picnic" on the patio.

Here are the cutest little students. I'm grateful to be their mother and their teacher--really the same thing, right?

 

Le Artiste

Other than her brief period of planning to be a clown, Maggie's career goals have consistently been on the same continuum. In preschool she wanted to be an artist. Now she wants to be an author and illustrator. Creating pictures (drawing or painting) has always been her goal. She's an excellent artist and was recently awarded a trophy at the Young Artists Faire at her school when her work was selected as one of the top two in her class.

With the easel she got for Christmas and the beret that her grandma bought her on our outing to the San Jose Flea Market in November, Maggie now looks the part of an artist as much as her creations demonstrate it.

 

Note: Lest you think Maggie has gone all abstract, the painting you see on the table is actually Holly's creation. She [Holly] has a distinctive flair for color and placement when she's got a paintbrush in her hand. Give her a crayon, though, and she methodically and thoroughly colors all available white space. It's clear that the medium determines composition for the youngest artist in the family. 

Four Eyes

On the first Sunday in February we were at a special church meeting that was a broadcast from Salt Lake City to all of Northern California. Because of that, we were watching most of the service as it was projected onto a large screen at the front of the chapel. During the intermediate hymn, the words of the song were up on the screen and Adah told us she couldn't see them.  At first I thought she just meant that people in front of her were blocking her view. But, indeed, she meant that she couldn't see them properly; they were fuzzy.

For the rest of the day we tested Adah's vision against our own and against Maggie's, asking them to read signs as we drove home or the months on the calendar from across the room. It was clear (no pun intended) that Adah wasn't seeing as well as she ought, and the next morning I called to make her an appointment with the eye doctor.

We've always told our children that glasses were an inevitable part of their futures. We figure that since Damon and I both are extremely nearsighted, the kids will be lucky to escape a spectacled future.

At the eye doctor, we learned that Adah is just a bit nearsighted. It's not too bad and she doesn't have to wear her glasses all the time.  Adah is thrilled with her improved vision in the classroom, at church, and while watching TV. And we all think she looks pretty cute, too.

Her frames are purple and turquoise.

 

Pig Wig

Gunnar has all the tools he needs to be a reader. He knows the alphabet--upper and lower case--and all the sounds. He just tends to be a little nervous about it, or lazy, or just laissez faire.

Reading can be a bit overwhelming. Looking at all those letters and words on a page is a bit much for someone just starting out. But reading is also the most amazing thing and opens up the entire world.  Seeing my children read for the first time and the excitement in their voices and eyes as they sound out words is one of the joys of motherhood.

Gunnar is a little sponge and has a most excellent memory for facts, especially if they pertain to animals. He can tell you just about anything he's ever learned from a book, TV show, or computer game about guinea fowls, blue morpho butterflies, or saber tooth tigers. When he starts reading all these books he chooses in the non-fiction section of the library on his own, look out!

For now, we're quite proud of his first reading accomplishment: Pig Wig. 

This great little book is the perfect thing for a first-time reader. We followed it with its cohorts Stop Pop and Crab Cab. These books take little readers through the -ig family, -an family, -op family, -ab family, and so on. Each book has silly illustrations and combinations of 3 different "families" of simple word endings.

They were perfectly accessible and non-threatening. Gunnar was so proud of himself when he had read a whole book by himself. That excitement and thrill of accomplishment was radiating from him.

Even better, is seeing him read it to his little sister.

Note: Pig Wig, Crab Cab, Stop Pop and others in the Flip-a-Word series are written by Harriet Ziefert and illustrated by Yukiko Kido.

Maggie's Baptism: Eight IS Great!

Maggie turned 8 on 13 January 2013. It was a Sunday and she decided to be baptized into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on that very day. In our church, children must be at least 8 years old to be baptized, because at that age they are capable of discerning between right and wrong and can make the baptismal covenant to keep the commandments and follow Jesus Christ. We are so proud of Maggie's decision to be a follower of Christ and become an official member of the Church. She was baptized by her dad.

Maggie's teacher from school, Mrs. Kim, accepted Maggie's invitation to come to the baptismal service. She lives near our church building and is friends with some of the church members who are also teachers in the school district. We were so happy that she came to support Maggie on this special day. Maggie really likes Mrs. Kim and is having a great 2nd grade year in her classroom. 

Audra is a friend from Maggie's first school in Milpitas. When Maggie moved to her current school, we didn't think we'd see her again. However, when Adah began learning the flute in a district band class, Audra's older sister was there learning the trumpet, so we ran into Audra after the first class! I have since become friends with Audra's mom and Adah is friends with her older sister. We were happy to have Audra and her mom join us for Maggie's baptism.

Lots of friends from primary came to witness the baptism and wish Maggie well. She got a candy lei from one family. . .

. . . and all the kids wrote her notes on the chalkboard in the adjoining classroom.

And, of course, all our California family was also there to watch Maggie take this important step. Holly got cozy with Grandma and was sacked out by the end of the service. (Maybe she found my talk boring.) Grandpa also came, as well as Uncle Jotham and Aunt Dana and kids, and Uncle Jed and Aunt Joette and kids. And we were so happy to have the Potters there from Washington. Uncle Jed and Brother Potter were able to help Damon confirm Maggie.

After the baptismal service at the church, the whole family, the Potters, and Audra & her mom, came to our house for a pasta buffet and double birthday cakes! We figured we needed a lot of cake to feed all those people, so we put four candles on each cake (photos did not turn out) to get the required eight. Maggie also got to open all her gifts from the family during this party. It was a really fun evening.

Before everyone went home, we tried to get a photo of all the cousins together. (Keep in mind that these are cousins from the McMillan and Wangsgard side, so technically not all of them are cousins with each other--just cousins to my kids.) As you can see, trying to get 10 children ages 10, 9, 8, 6, 6, 5, 3, 3, 2, and 2 months to all sit still and smile nicely for the camera was pretty tricky. And, again, the photography job was pretty lousy anyway. Still, you get the idea of how much fun and craziness must have been happening at our house as we celebrated Maggie's birthday and baptism.

A little better. . .

Almost. . .

but not quite. : )

FYI: The kids (from the top) are Holly, Cassie, Braden, & Christian; Anya, Kiera, & Adah; Gunnar, Kara, & Maggie.