The Incident

The loss of Thunder was a big event Monday morning. Although she is completely over it now, at the time I wasn't sure how everything was going to turn out. Priya loves these horses. Most toys bring measurable joy then are forgotten within the first couple of months. Certainly within a year, they are in a corner collecting dust. Not these horses. Within a day of receiving them, they all had been named and they are still so important to her that 2 of them got to go on vacation with us last week. Only one made it back alive.

And, that's how traumatic it felt on Monday morning when this was all going down... which is why I instinctively grabbed my camera to see what I might be able to catch on film. I don't know why I do it. I may regret it later or I may treasure these "crying/angry" videos more than I treasure the happy ones. She may hate me for it or she may love me for it. Only time will tell.

I dug around and found the video clip of her opening this gift on her 6th birthday, then I spliced in some stuff from Monday morning. Here's the result...

Vacation Over... It's Back To The Daily Grind

We're back home tonight; the kids are worn out; it's back to school tomorrow. They went to bed early tonight and I'm expecting to have to wake them in the morning. Both are exhausted.

This morning while we were packing up, Caboose got a hold of Priya's "specialist" toy horse. It wasn't a good outcome for the plastic fur-coated little guy.



When Sanjay shared the news with Priya, she wanted to know "Was it the one whose leg goes like this? Was it Triple Crown?". When Sanjay assured her it wasn't that one, I thought all was well. But then she had one more question... "Was it Thunder?". Sanjay said, "Yes" and that's when the flood of tears began. She cried so hard... it was as if she were mourning the loss of an actual live horse. She told me to just throw him in the trash... she couldn't bear to see the condition that Caboose left him in. She was very angry with Caboose, even at one point threatening to call the vet and have him put down. The full week of activity and sheer tiredness just added to her emotions. It was a crazy mess, but she eventually snapped out of it.

While Bartee was downstairs catching up on the latest Tamil movie, I threw together this little video of our last couple of days in the mountains. Enjoy!



Also, if you haven't seen them yet, I uploaded a few more photos to Facebook. Check them out, here.

Happy Valentine's Day!

More Fun in Ski Country

I just had to take a picture of the kids with their head-gear on. Aren't their little heads cute?



It was quite possibly the music from the race course adjacent to the terrain park or maybe it was the rude snowboarders that cut him off on the jump before this, but something made Bartee's skis slide out from under him on this rail. I only wish I had kept the camera on him throughout the entire fall. Thankfully no one was injured.



We have been able to leisurely spend our days on the slopes because of the amazing dog walker that we found in the area. She sends us a daily email journal of their time together. Today she took him hiking around Lake Dillon and sent us "some photos from our time absorbing local Dillon history". I had a good laugh at him posing by these signs. Too funny.

Angry on the Slopes

Here's the video I promised yesterday... it was shortly after this clip that she threatened to bury my camera in the snow. Fun times on this difficult trail. :)

Family Ski Trip

We're 3 days into a week long local ski trip... a bit envious of our Maryland friends who are getting all the snowfall. It seems that this January was the 6th driest on record here in Colorado and it's evident at the ski resorts. You can still find good conditions, but you have to go searching for them. Some of the trails have more rocks than they should and others have grassy patches, much like you find during spring skiing. We plan to spend the week over at Vail and Beaver Creek where there's more terrain and better snow.

The kids are skiing well. Sanjay seems to have remembered everything from last year and he's gained a LOT of speed. Luckily though he maintains control even when he starts skiing faster. Honestly, I cannot keep up with him on the black diamond mogul trails that we ski. My only chance of staying ahead of him is on the mogul-free blue trails. He is much better than me on varied terrain and today after I mentioned to Bartee that we were on a trail that exceeded my ability level, Sanjay started looking out for me. He insisted on staying with me and every once in a while, he'd look up and say "Come this way Mom... see me? Come towards me" or "Are you ok, Mom?" or "Go around that tree and come down here". It was too cute. Priya also said to me, "Mom, if I can do it, you can too", trying to alleviate my fears. But then after about 100 yards of those steep moguls and trees, she started to fall apart. It was too much for her, too and on top of that she was cold, her legs were tired, her fingers were numb and she "doesn't want to ski every day this week". We heard excuse after excuse all the way down. Bartee and I took turns losing patience with her. She's a great skier, but she unfortunately lacks confidence. It's even harder for her when she sees Sanjay excelling. We try to compensate with lots of compliments, but sometimes that backfires. Today she threatened to bury my camera in the snow. It's always an adventure with these two Jekyll and Hyde children of ours.



For more pictures of today's adventures, click here.

While we were out skiing, Caboose was with a dog walker in the area. We got an email report and some photos of their day together.

"Caboose was a very good boy today. He had a 2 hour walk so I hope he's a litte more relaxed for you all."



p.s. - I have a video to share with you, but YouTube is down right now. I'll try to get that uploaded tomorrow.

Ski Weekend in Breckenridge

Turns out that this winter hasn't been fruitful in the snow department. I know you East coast folk may find that hard to believe since you've been getting dumped on, but it's been a little dry over here. We finally did make it up for a weekend of family skiing and it coincided with the annual Snow Sculpture festival in Breckenridge so that was a nice bonus.

The first few hours of the first day were filled with Priya's fun remarks like "Daddy I told you I want to review since this is my first time this year" and her crying because "Daddy is not letting me review, he's making me go in the trees".

And then Sanjay had a good wipe out in the deep snow in the trees. I think there was just one place on the whole mountain where the snow was deep in the trees and Sanjay found it. Of course, Daddy was about 176 yards ahead and therefore missed the whole thing. It took me about 10 minutes, some unnecessary yelling at Sanjay (he was only following Daddy) and a few years off the life of my back to get him out of that mess.

The afternoon went a lot more smoothly and everyone got their ski legs back. The weather was fantastic and the kid's moods were amazing.... all were warm and sunny.

We are headed up again this weekend for a 10 day trip, so expect more frequent blog posts and many more pictures of snow. Trying again this year to get my aunt and her family out here for a ski trip and the pictures seem to work well for this. We miss our old ski buddies.

Here are Priya and Sanjay at the top of a trail. Off in the distance, and by off in the distance I mean those teeny tiny white lines at the top of the photo, you can see some of the slopes over at Keystone.



For more photos of our Breck adventures, click here.

I took a fun little video of the kids riding the roller coaster hills in the Terrain park. It highlights Sanjay's mad ski skills maneuvering out of the way when Priya stopped on a dime in the worst of places.