Monday, February 8, 2010

Snow (and more snow and more snow)



Since marrying a winter lover from the Midwest, I've developed a certain fondness for the season. Last year, I blogged about not enough proper winter. Not enough snow, sledding, hot cocoa, fire place opportunities. I should be so lucky this winter. Having survived the 16.8 inches Snowpocalypse in December, we just "enjoyed" the mind-numbing, back-breaking Snowmaggedon (26+ inches) this past weekend. And now, my beloved Capital Weather Gang tells me we're looking at another blizzard and possible additional foot tomorrow. Even Uncle Sam has panicked and shut down government for the second day in a row. It's been a long time since we've gotten consecutive days off (the Post thinks it was 2003 but I am 99.9% sure that isn't right since that Monday was a federal holiday and OPM closed us down on Tuesday as well.) Ugh.

I reached a certain desperation point on Sunday, vowing that come hell or high water I would leave the house on Monday. I am just not made out for full time housekeeping- three meals a day, endless loads of laundry, snow pants on, snow pants off. Thus, the girls and I escaped for some retail therapy this AM. Tysons Corner never looked so good. The indoor playground was enough to give somewhat sane parents nightmares. Kids who probably not been outside since Friday paced the perimeter of that damn place like the hounds of hell. In between you had ninny parents trying to capture that magic moment on film. Hello? Still, I was heartily grateful for this brief interlude with the rest of humanity especially since I came home to the dire warnings of more snow on the way. In fact, the forecast not only drove me out to shop just because, it also drove us to a restaurant for dinner since we probably won't see one of those again for days. SNOW (Imagine me raising my fists to the sky in a somewhat pointless gesture.)

For those curious about how we survived Snowmaggedon, OPM called a 4 hours early release on Friday so we were safely home as the snow began to really come down. We are gecko-sitting this week which makes the weather even more of a challenge, as we discovered to our peril on Saturday after we lost power. Geckos, being cold blooded creatures, require a heated tank. Only after wrapping the gecko tank in blankets and surrounding it most ritualistically in candles, we discovered that our elderly Dutch neighbors had power. Gecko was thus shipped next store after an extremely laborious explanation that when we said "gecko" we did actually seem small lizard. Power was restored in due course (we were one of the very lucky ones) and gecko was returned (I believe much to gecko's delight. Our neighbors are relatively quiet people unlike our two children and felines who spend the better part of any given day crawling around the kitchen counter to check on the lizard.) After 7 passes we liberated ourselves at least out of our driveway but are still waiting for our street to be entirely liberated.



And so we wait for the next wallop. Florida never sounded so good. And remind me to revisit the topic of trying to "make up" to my now three years old her birthday spent almost entirely indoors with her sister, gecko, and cats for company.

Monday, February 1, 2010

If you listen hard enough, you can almost hear the schuss



We did it! We finally made a real none VT ski trip this past weekend. Not that there's anything wrong with a VT ski trip. In fact, we've become spoiled rotten having a good mountain, free lodging and some Q-time with grandparents available to us whenever we say yes. (For the record, we're saying yes in a few weeks time.) But even though it requires a bit of a hike, going to VT is almost a mindless effort. We don't have to prep, explore, convince the girls that this is in fact fun. Some of this ease has made me feel like a bit less of an enthusiast. So buying a ski rack, packing a gear back, throwing the girls into the wagon as the first snow was beginning to fall in VA, and then making a slow but steady push towards WV made me feel a bit more legit. It was a LOOONG weekend- 5ish hours to get there, one half night of sleep, 6ish hours of skiing, 5 hours back (considering the Arbys stop) and back at work this AM. But still, we did it.

Best of all, Snowshoe was a decent mountain and definitely worth the trip and the girls loved it. After a skiddish start, Isabel was queen of the magic carpet, demonstrating that she could in fact do it all on her own. We're trying to encourage her to turn and the incredible, weird thing was, she was almost parallel ski turning at a few points. She could snow plow to stop herself when she needed to. Could she be that advanced? I doubt it but can you imagine?




We got Lottie up on skis as well. She was more fond of the lift than anything but she skied some between our knees and some being carried. Her favorite part was singing a wobbly rendition of the "Hokey Pokey" as we went down the hill. Isabel was the same at 3- a good "Wormin' Polka" (for you Backyardigan fans out there) could distract her from the cold. My question (for anyone out there) is how do you explain "don't sit on your skis" to a 3 years old? Please stand up wasn't doing the trick.




Of course after a morning of squat skiing and cheering, by the time I was ready to take a few runs after lunch I was a bit shocked at the pitch of the run I chose. So shocked in fact I mini panicked and then face planted. Always a good way to warm up after a year of rusting. I was so tired I felt a bit like Derek Zoolander, only able to go to the left in this instance. I seriously paid for it today. My right calf muscle is in a knot and no amount of stretching or the two miles I jogged today will seem to pacify the beastly thing. I fear my Zumba performance may be impacted.

Oh well, it's too bad we couldn't pack a little more time off in this weekend. Now to just get myself through the next two weeks before my next fix.