Week 20: Jan 9-15, 2011 Deep Freeze

Everyone stayed inside and cozy.

When, by the middle of the week, we'd reached a high of 13F (and it felt good) we knew we'd had some frigid weather.  On the 11th it was -17F !  A good week for buckling down and getting some school work done.  We've reached a stage in Algebra that has become significantly more complicated so it was time to check out the "Mega Genius Store".  Through the efforts of Teri Orr and the Eccles Center for the Performing Arts, and inspired by Teri's participation in a TED event, the Mega Genius Store opened last year in order to facilitate all types of learning and learners.  It operates on volunteer power and welcomes all students for free tutoring.  When Grant and I walked in there were a bunch of kids standing at a counter working together on an art project.  Sitting at tables kids were being tutored in math and further back there was a child reading on a comfy couch.  We met Stan a retired college math professor/ part-time Park City resident who, along with his wife, volunteer at the Eccles and have a part time gig at Park City Mountain Resort to get ski passes.  Our timing was not great since Mega Genius will close next week in order to prepare for Sundance the following week--so, we made plans to see Stan on Feb 4th.
It was tough to get outside and get much exercise--poor Sobe.  But apparently I am a wimp because both Seth and Kate stayed busy teaching little kids how to ski at Deer Valley!  On the -17 morning I told Kate that if any parent dropped their kid off for lessons she should report them to family services.
We started our art lessons last week using Betty Edwards' book, "Drawing On the Right Side of the Brain".  Gregg, Grant and I have an art folder and we're going to work our way through the lessons.  I'll take some pictures of our work later on.  Also, our friend John recommended a great web site called Sheppardsoftware.com that Grant's been using to learn geography.

Thankfully the weather warmed up enough for skiing on Saturday.  Gregg's back was still bothering him from tweeking it after a day of skiing a few weeks ago so I dropped Grant off at PCMR for his AMP ski group and then continued on to Deer Valley to meet up with  my ski group.

This week was supposed to end with our attending a talk by Sir Ken Robinson (TED) but he canceled at the last minute due to health complications.  We'll catch him when he re-schedules--if we're around!

Week 19: Jan 2-8, 2011

Another challenge in this 'walkabout' is having other siblings home--whether they're having a day off work or home for the holidays there's a little extra focusing that needs to occur to get the school work done.  Grant did a great job of getting his work done, then having time to recreate.  Nancy and I went to Weston, ID on Monday where Eric, Open Range Consulting's computer guru, lives.  We descended down into his basement, 'Mission Control', and experienced a time-warp while entering and manipulating data on the computer and only surfacing for meals.  There are not many days in my life when I don't step foot outside, Tuesday was one of them.  Eric had Nancy and I working on different tasks and I'm sure he gave Nancy the more complicated job.  He told us that he's noticed that when training anyone younger than himself (he's in his 30's) he can show them what to do and they generally catch on after a few repetitions.  Anyone older than him likes to take notes (with a pencil and paper).  I took copious notes on each step which I referred to often while Nancy jumped in and learned it with nary a note.

Grant and Nancy in the Ice Cave.

Gregg and Grant came up Wednesday morning and after giving Grant an overview of the work that gets done at Eric's, we headed up to Birch Creek (in the Mink Creek area) for some snowmobiling with Eric and his dad.  Another 'beat-the-crowd- experience', we saw two other people the entire 50 mile tour--these were a couple of young guys who had racy machines that they could run up incredibly steep slopes doing incredibly scary looking tricks.  And, I think since we were the only other folks THEY saw out there we got a special little show.  We stopped at the Ice Caves and climbed down in, rode up to the warming hut for some lunch and then all the way to Paris, ID.  Eric was in heaven.  He's a real snowmobiling fan and we were lucky enough to have freshly groomed trails the entire way.      

Grant, Eric, Nancy, Julie, Gregg and David outside the warming hut.

A routine developed the rest of the week:  get up and get work done, which includes Algebra, Vocabulary, Grammar  and journal for Grant.  Then get some sort of exercise whether it's downhill or xc skiing, walking Sobe, snowshoeing, swiss-bobbing...on Saturdays we drop Grant off at AMP--his All Mountain ski Program and we (or whoever doesn't have a sore back) meet friends to ski at one of the local resorts.  While trying not to founder over lunch at Deer Valley, Steve threw down the ultimate invitation:  'White Rim-Mother's Day mountain-biking weekend'!  YEEEHAW!  Last time we did that Grant was in diapers and after he bounced out of the bike cart once he rode in the vehicle the rest of the way--it will be such a great experience for him at this age.  Stay tuned.

Mark, Linda, Steve, Nikki, Henry, Julie (Kristen photographer)

Week 18: New Year's Eve Eve Tubing Party

As Christmas break continued Grant, as well as the rest of us, connected with friends and enjoyed our own little winter wonderland.  'Twas the night before New Year's Eve, when nobody seems to have any plans because everyone has plans for the 31st, when we had our annual tubing party at Soldier Hollow.  It's tough to pry yourself out of your warm little nest on a blustery, frigid evening to slide down a hill laughing and screaming for 2 hours BUT those rugged individuals who manage to succeed always have a great time.  Unfortunately, Gregg, who took Grant and Nancy skiing earlier in the day and survived the jumps and bumps that Grant took him down did not survive the slippery parking lot and tweaked his back while catching himself from slipping, preventing his attendance at the tubing party; and Kate, whose boyfriend planned his flight from DEN-SLC so that he could make it to the party but kept getting delayed due to said 'blustery weather', was on hold at the airport and returned home around 11p.m.--just as we were getting back from tubing.

NEW YEAR'S EVE

While Grant hung out with his friends in Park City playing games and having fondue until the stroke of midnight, Gregg and I went to Logan to a Utah Public Radio fund raising event with our old friends, the 'nurds'.

Week 17: Christmas

In a ski town the perfect Christmas Break means the snow starts flying as soon as the break starts and that's what it did this year.  Nancy came home after the solstice so she was the only one in our family to witness the Lunar Eclipse Solstice.  Too cloudy here but in Boise she climbed up on someone's roof with some friends and said it was amazing and eerie.   Grant and Gregg worked on a 'box' for doing tricks on skis in the back yard, we made Christmas cookies (on my Mom's birthday), and went to the Case's traditional Christmas party. 

With two kids as ski instructors at Deer Valley, family time was a rare occurrence. While Seth and Kate were at work on Christmas Eve, Gregg did some last minute shopping, Nancy played elf, Grant played on his ski jump and I prepared the Christmas Eve feast--"Thanksgiving-style".  Since we always go to Idaho for Thanksgiving we never get to enjoy the best part of turkey-day--the day-after leftovers, and this year we didn't even have a turkey sandwich!  So I baked, basted, peeled, mashed, whipped and sliced and by some stroke of luck everything turned out beautifully.  Kate invited 3 otherwise-orphaned Deer Valley friends who were spending their first Christmas away from home.  We feasted, then followed that up with some 'around the world' ping pong--not such a great idea on very full stomachs, and ended the evening with our traditional Christmas Eve present-opening--the pajamas.  The DV kids loved their new flannels.

Grant was old enough to put a Biore strip to use, along with the rest of  us for a little Christmas morning bonding.

Kate suits up for work.

Christmas morning has evolved over the years and though we may have all been o.k. with sleeping in a bit at this stage that is not an option for ski instructors.  We were up early and enjoyed the morning together before Seth and Kate had to leave.  The rest of us went back to bed for awhile, skied in the afternoon and spent the evening with old friends at the Karz household.  They've been hosting the Christmas dinner since our kids were in school together.  We're all so grateful and I'm always impressed that their house is so lovely-- a haz-mat suit might come to mind upon entering our house after Christmas morning.

Grant treasures the times when we're all together--we were all so happy to spend 

one more Christmas with each other.