Good Things

Hello there! Where have you been? As for me, I’m back in the green after spending a week in Big Bear battling frigid 60-degree temps and pouring endless cups of hot chocolate. We’d promised the kids snow, and by God, He complied, even if the balmy weather belied the alpine vibe just a tad. Still, we got the sledding and the skiing and the roaring fire and the bulky sweaters. Truly, the week exceeded all my imaginings of a snow chalet vacation. It’s gonna be one of those trips the kids remember for years.

We rented a beautiful cabin with two other families and spent our time sledding on the hill out back (which the boys transformed into a safeish luge track with an enormous mid-slide ramp), cooking up big group meals, playing games, and talking. The kind of talking you don’t do very often because of the cell phones and the computers. One day, the gals even made it into town, surprisingly populated by a large variety of clothing boutiques. I guess mountain villages have their fair share of people dying to talk to non-mountain-villagers because store clerks engaged us in continual “what’s going on in the real world” conversations that were both refreshing and perhaps a little tiresome. But hey, if that’s my biggest vacation complaint, I’d say things generally fell into the awesome category.

All week, flames crackled in the fireplace, wine glasses clinked and spaghetti boiled. Our dinners consisted of pizza, pasta, chili, and leftovers, and breakfasts were large affairs of pancakes, gravy and biscuits, and scrambled eggs. As I happily discovered, three women working the kitchen cuts prep time in half, and three men cleaning up means there’s more time for relaxation, which we enjoyed in spades. I do so like kitchen helpers.

Turns out the days after President’s Day are referred to as “Ski Week” around these parts, and kids have the time off from school. Many of our friends and neighbors took advantage of the vacation to head to Big Bear and so for several nights a gaggle of noisy kids and chatting adults made its way to our chalet for fun and frolic, and really? I can think of no better day than that. The fact that we got a whole bunch of ’em wrapped up in happy children, family adventure, and blue-skied snow made this trip one of the best I’ve ever had.

Coulda done without the down-the-mountain-barf though. But the ying and the yang, right?