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.