Ski Schweitzer

We stayed in a nice ski-in condo a short ways from the main lift for 3 nights and the weather for the most part cooperated! It was really foggy over about half the mountain but once you got above a certain level it was crystal clear with really bright sunshine.

They were really in to flicking frozen snow bits off of every sign

Pre-Ski

Monopoly

This photo captured the strange weather really well. It would be completely foggy for half the chairlift and then all of a sudden you'd emerge into bright sunlight

Above the fog

The crew!

Georgia and Tennessee

We flew down over the 4-day weekend to help celebrate Haraboji's 80th birthday! The weather was atypical as they were expecting a "big winter storm" but it only amounted to some snow outside Atlanta and some wet conditions. Roads were ok.

Our family, Sung's family's and Haraboji's cousin, wife, and daughter from North Carolina

Sung's new house is very nice! Almost 9000 square feet, outside Atlanta.

This was inside the historic Chattanooga Choo Choo station. It's now a hotel.

Rock City and Ruby Falls are main tourist attractions that Dae's mom took us to when we visited 14 years ago as well. Dae and Sung were saying they'd bet their mom has been over 100 times (when hosting out of town guests). I guess she had a season pass. ha!

Atlanta Aquarium - biggest aquarium in the US - was great. The big standouts were the whale sharks (huge), the beluga whales (so interesting), the little cuttle fish

Never seen a beluga in my life! They are darker when young and white when they're old. They loved swimming upside down and then coming over to the glass wall and swimming up against it. They looked so soft, like marshmallows.

This whale was overweight and then lost a lot of weight so the handler said this was all extra skin.

Atlanta Breakfast Club. 2-3 hour waits and SO good. Luckily you can put your name on the Yelp Waitlist so that's what we did. The chicken and waffles + peach cobbler on top was absolutely finger licking delicious!

Bright, bright sunset on our flight home. We have been so lucky in the amount of flights that have taken off relatively ontime this winter season. There have been so many canceled flights and we haven't had any cancelations that have dramatically impacted our trips.

Orthodontia for the Little(st) Lee!

We showed up at Olin's ortho appointment thinking it would be a quick check of his palatal expander. I had forgotten he was getting his four front braces!  I even told Christian he could just wait in the car since it would be quick. haha. 

Booty

Bagel sandwich for breakfast after fasting blood draw for cholesterol check. We got lucky in that today was a 2 hour snow delay so kids didn't have to miss any school after all.

Claira drew this for Olin. It's really good! She said it took her about an hour. One funny thing about owning a hedgehog is that lots of people give us hedgehog related gifts. This Christmas alone, altogether as a family we got (a hedgehog varietal of) an ornament, a drawing, a planter with a succulent, and a stuffed animal. I think that's all but I could be forgetting.  I really enjoy the hedgehog gifts!

Season Opener

White Pass was windy on the backside and cold in places, but it rarely disappoints! We drove up with Amy, Erik and Ursula so the kids enjoyed the ride up and then we were able to meet up with two of Olin's soccer teammates and he had a grand time. He said one of his favorite parts was when just the three of them rode the chairlift together and chatted about soccer. haha. I forgot to get a photo.

Lots of reflective surfaces. Olin's goggles are from Costco, Christian's are from Amazon. It's kind of amazing the gear on kids these days (ours included). Spyder, Helly Hansen, Hestra, basically high quality stuff I just now get as an adult. 

Skiing back to the car on a questionable alternative route

Olin was pretty much crying on our last run before lunch due to cold, tired. He seriously perked up and did a 180 about ten seconds after receiving his lunch of tater tots, mac & cheese, and hot chocolate. 

Nintendo in the 3rd row. We did force them to play/chat/read until Yakima at least...

Unrelated: we came back from vacation to an un-draining kitchen sink. While we wait for the plumber we're back to using the small pantry sink, and therefore our dishes are being hand washed and are the dirtiest they've ever been. ha! I can't wait to get out of the pantry.

Happy New Year 2022!

Olin set to work on a whiteboard making this little piece. Both of the kids are so excited about the year 2022. 

 

These are the types of things that happen when we clean out Spikey's cage first thing in the morning and it's cold out but it's too much work to put pants on. Just a jacket and snow boots will do for this guy.

Christian's Science Fair experiment for CK. Putting teeth in different acidity.

We officially gave Christian his iPhone (but emphasized that the phone belongs to us!). He was like "what? I thought I wasn't getting a phone until I turned 16!"

Dae's side of the bed is usually some variation of this: vaccine card, a book that work is requiring them to read that generally remains unopened, golf passes, and some sort of snack, on this day King's Hawaiian Rolls. Ha!

They've been sledding all week which is great because I don't have to drive them anywhere, they can just walk to Snyder hill. It has been really cold but sunny on most days. Today we heard Olin call Fox on the landline and the convo must have started out with someone at their house saying they were going sledding because once Fox got on the line, Olin says "I hear you're going sledding", then a response, then Olin says "can we join you?", then a response, then Olin says "we'll be right over". For some reason it was really funny.