Snow and Ashes

I know. Strange title.

The kids and I played hookey yesterday and headed up to Big Bear. We left at 5:30 AM and dropped Jax off at Tanner's house on our way. Poor Jax. He is not allowed to ski/board with the pins still in his arm. His pins will come out soon and he will have his final cast so that is some good news. I am not sure how happy he will be when they remove the pins but I do plan on giving him some codeine beforehand - doctors orders.

Back to our day.

We picked half of the Muck family up and we headed up the mountain. Here is where the fun part starts.
Chains went on in Redlands due to the snow and ice - obviously. We ventured up the mountain at 30 MPH. Let me say that driving with chains is very, very noisy.
After almost sliding off the road we finally made it to the top and headed to Blauer to get our gear.
The kids were so excited. Big Bear has so much snow. It is amazingly beautiful.

We boarded/skied all day until we closed the mountain down. The weather was perfect, the conditions were awesome (let's not compare Big Bear to Mammoth/Colorado please), and THERE WAS NO ONE THERE! Many times we would be on a trail with no one in sight. It was so great.

Zach and Nick boarded all over the mountain and did their rails and boxes and whatever else they do. Black Diamond runs (once again, no comparisons please) were the talk of the day as Zach actually went down The Bowl! Nate surprised me as well. Steph and I took off down a run with Nate and then we split up as Nate wanted to take that Black Diamond run and we just wanted to chill down the easier one. He loves skiing and everyone of us were on that mountain all day!

We took about 1/2 of one of the bags of Gary's ashes and we sprinkled them down the Miracle Mile run. The kids loved that and Gary's remains will become one with the earth on top of Summit! (OMG - that sounds so granola - not that it's bad or anything).

The ride home was sketchy as well. One of our chains broke off and it took about a 1/2 hour to get the other one off. Travelling on the poor road conditions was more than worth it! Hopefully we can go up another day next week. A big storm is heading our way this weekend and it will hopefully dump so much snow!

I am off to the gym and meetings and homework make up and snack bar duties and blah blah blah blah blah............I really do need a clone.

I am not going to get into how we are holding up right now. I have had writers block lately again and I am tired of it. If I can tonight I will write.

The puppy (Hurley) is coming soon. The kids are super happy. I am happy but not looking forward to raising another puppy. I am sure he will bring us so much joy. The good will outweigh the challenging.

Have a great day!

Love,
L