#1 Tip for Florida vacationers

DO NOT GO IN THE MONTHS OF JULY OR FIRST TWO WEEKS OF AUGUST!

 

 Jus' sayin'!

 

That sentence pretty much states it all in a nutshell, my friends.

 

Yes. I've been on vacation.

 

Yes. It was so hot we sweated as soon as we walked outside . . . and we're used to the heat and humidity!

 

Yes. We went to Disney World in Florida . . . again.

 

Yes. We rode the new Seven Dwarves mine train.

 

Yes. We went to Universal Florida. . . again. 

 

Yes. We went to Diagon Alley and rode the new Escape from Gringotts ride.

 

No. We didn't wait 4 hours (yes, you read that right. 4, as in four, quattro, cuatro, quatre, vier, etc.) for the Gringotts ride, but many people did. We waited for an hour, but that's what you do when you get up before the butt-crack of dawn to wait in line for the ride.

 

The heat. The crowds. The sweating. The blisters. The lack of sleep. The exhaustion. The 20,000+ steps a day on our Fitbits. The 10-15 MILES of daily walking.

 

 

UGH!

 

And then the good . . . The Disney bars. The rides. The food! The beer (one for every country, right?). The butterbeer ice cream.

 

MMMMMmmmm!

 

 



Our vacation started innocuously enough, three travelers ready for vacation on a beach in Florida . . .

Bright eyed and bushy tailed on the first day of vaca



Our balcony at Ft. Lauderdale



Photobombed by the daughter on beach



Sunset with a thundercloud in the east over the Atlantic

 

 



We've known for quite some time that we are NOT beach people. After a couple of hours we are bored, but it was a nice break for what was next to come. . .

 

(to be continued . . . )



Wally World Tips and Tricks--part one

I drafted this blog last summer as soon as we returned from Florida, but I never got around to posting it . . .  probably because I never wrote part two! I'll work on part two this weekend and post it next week some time. Hope this helps!

So you are planning to go to Walt Disney World (WDW)? Or Universal Florida (UF)?

Then you better be prepared with more than a wallet stuffed full of money!

I have so much information to share that this might take more than one blog to do it in. In the past, I've shared a few 'must do' secrets, but if you have to go to these parks smack dab in the busy season, then you really need to follow my tips and tricks.

If you have never been to these parks, the first thing you need to do is go out and buy the UNOFFICIAL GUIDE TO WALT DISNEY WORLD. No, I am not associated with this book, nor I do not get any financial recompense for recommending this book. It's just a good book that CRAMS loads of information on every page. And I highly recommend you start reading this book 6-8 months PRIOR to your vacation. Yes, there is that much information to be had. The last version that I bought--2007--is about 2-inches thick with tiny font, plus it had added information about Universal Studios. I don't know if the newer books provide that information.

I'll tell you up front--the book is overwhelming--true, there's tons of information, but you have to sift through the words to find what's important for you and your family.

AND this will change as your family becomes older and your preferences change. For example: going to these parks with little kids is totally different than going to them with pre-teens.

Before you even contemplate going to either one of these parks, see if you can pull your kid from school to hit the parks during 'shoulder season'. Shoulder season is off season, usually when the kiddos are in school, but the windows of time are narrowing. The key thing to remember is that the crowds are lighter, the lines aren't as long, the temperature cooler, and it might be just a little bit cheaper.

Getting there--this last year, we drove. It was it's own adventure reminiscent of the road trip I took in my youth. Kids have it so easy now with electronic gadgets and gizmos, while I had to play I SPY or read while I was that age.

Driving was fun, but time-consuming and boring. I don't know if hubby crunched the numbers, but with the added gasoline/hotel/meals I don't know if we saved any money driving vs. flying, or not. Part of the reason we drove was so the kidlet could go to the beach. We went to two different beaches, so that part was worth it.

In the past when we flew, we would board a plane at 5-6 AM, arrive in Atlanta at 2.5 hours, board another flight to Orlando, rent a car and be eating Wendy's no later than 1 PM. Many times we would be in our hotel and on a ride three hours later. The added expense of a rental car is slightly offset by the convenience of having a car and not having to rely on the park transportation to get you to the individual parks.

Hotels--I'm spoiled here. We have always stayed at an on-site hotel. We stay at the Portofino when at Universal, and this last time at WDW we stayed at the Beach Club, which is walking distance from Epcot, instead of the Wilderness Lodge (still my favorite hotel!). I don't care where you stay because during the crowded season, you can expect most of your hotel costs to DOUBLE! BUT there are a few advantages to staying on-site.

• If you're simply comparing room sizes to outside hotels then you are doing yourself a disfavor because you need to factor in the experience and convenience of being onsite. For example: if you stay at the Wilderness Lodge, you will feel like you are visiting Yellowstone National Park. And when you travel to the Magic Kingdom, you go by boat, which is a fun experience! When at the Beach Club, you can walk to the back entrance of Epcot. Staying at the Polynesian, Grand Floridian, or Contemporary, then you can ride the Monorail to the Magic Kingdom. And WDW has a fleet of buses that travel from all hotels to the various parks.
• If stay on site and you do drive your car to the parks, you don't have to pay a parking fee at those parks, which can save you $16/day/park (2014).

Staying onsite at the Universal hotels will provide you with an Express Pass voucher for the days you are in the park. Of course, for those people who don't stay at one of their hotels, UF offers a variety of options for the Express pass--the cost depends on the estimated crowd levels and time of year. The more crowded it is, the more an Express pass will cost. Click on their site to find out what a daily pass is for X amount of people in your family--and then decide if it's more beneficial to stay at an on-site hotel or not!

• Again, trust me, the extra cost of an onsite hotel is totally worth the advantage of Express Passing the long lines, plus getting into the park an hour early to the Harry Potter experience and Transformers.
• You can walk to the parks (NOT recommended if you're at the Portofino as you will get plenty of walking at the parks!), or take a bike taxi, or wait for the boat.

That's it for today. I'll have a few more suggestions in a few more days!
. . . and will probably remember a few that I forgot about when I wrote this blog!

Later, Peeps!

Weighty Wednesday -- WallyWorld or Bust!

*original title: Vacation Strategies* BORING! I prefer the new title, don't you?

I had another wonderful weigh-in, as I'm maintaining my current weight quite nicely, but there are always challenges to deal with.

The one monster that I've been fighting over the last few weeks happens to be the mongo-sized jar of Nutella that I stupidly bought at one of those wholesale warehouse stores. My little trick of taping the jar closed hasn't worked quite as well as it usually does. But the good news is that the jar is almost empty and will NOT be replaced anytime soon.

*sorry, kidlet, but momma likes her new size and can't afford the temptation!*

Another challenge many of us will be facing this summer is *duh-duh-duh* VACATION. Or you might have already dealt with it and have moved on because I'm late to the party. Oh, well. Better late than never, right?

I'll hop right into this topic, since I'm busy editing and I can feel the Sword of Damocles hanging over my head, ready to drop when the hair breaks.

There are three ways to look at weight loss when you vacation:

1) you don't give a rat's patootie about all the months and months of hard work you've done, because you deserve the party! WooHoo!!

2) you don't want to be a party pooper, but you also spent good money on the all-inclusive cruise/ resort/ Disney dining plan/ (insert whatever here) and want to enjoy yourself without doing too much damage.

3) forget having any kind of fun. You are focused with your eye on the prize and plan to pack your measuring cups, food scale, pedometer, exercise equipment, and points calculator.

**If there is nothing else you do when preparing for vacation, you need to at least think about how you will tackle food challenges, because they will ALWAYS be there.**

Personally, I don't have any use for plan #1--planning to gain weight.

I know how long it took to lose the weight and as much as I would want to go Girls Gone Wild, I don't think I could let it happen. The problem with this attitude is the chance that you won't want to regain control over your food when you return to the reality of you dull day-to-day life. The damage will have been done. Do you want to face the scale when you get back when you have this devil may care attitude?

I wouldn't.

I'm going to skip #2 for now and go directly to #3--staying the course and losing weight.

This is a wonderful plan, but don't you think it's a little in your face? Kind of like smokers who quit smoking and then they're worse than any non-smoker ever was about criticizing smokers?? Did that even make sense?  It's early and I over slept and my coffee is too hot to drink. Sorry, but that's my only excuse.

My only suggestion is don't be so focused that you lose the fun out of vacation, whether you are with your family or friends or your significant other. Enjoy yourself, but don't go overboard with the whack-a-doodle attitude. Instead of working out in the hotel gym, walk the beach with your bestie, learn to surf, or climb Diamondhead, or do the crazy fast walk in DisneyWorld to beat the crowd to Space Mountain. Find other ways to get your exercise.

If you've been doing this losing weight for any length of time you will probably have a good idea of portions. If you don't, then review your portion sizes by using your hand as a reference. Unless you have Sasquatch-sized paws on a tiny little body, then you have bigger problems to deal with.

Which brings us back to plan #2--staying the same weight

I'll warn you right now that even if you plan to stay the same weight, you might gain a little bit, but don't worry about that gain because it will come off quickly.

This is usually my plan. It revolves around making good choices most of the time and if you make a poor choice then you DON'T HAVE TO CLEAN YOUR PLATE!  Last year, my hubby told me that even though we on the Disney Dining Plan and everything was paid for up front. He told me that I shouldn't feel like I needed to eat everything on my plate. This was a HUGE relief, by just saying this it took away the guilt of throwing food away. It happens. I'm not going to eat it later like I would at home.

Here are a few vacation tips--and yes, many of these will sound VERY, VERY familiar!:
--smaller portions
--eat slowly
--drink lots of water
--enjoy an alcoholic beverage or two, but get a romantic walk later
--enjoy the fruits and vegetables of the local area
--limit your protein intake
--stay away from fried anything on a stick--you can sample from someone else's stick
--share desserts/snacks
--try a new exercise experience
--hike a mountain or even a molehill
--bike down a Hawaiian volcano

In my opinion, the key to maintaining or only having a slight gain in your weight is to thoughtfully enjoy your vacation.

Hang loose, Peeps!

Returning to Reality

Christmas is all wrapped up--literally. All my Christmas stuff is lovingly packed away and shoved into the tiny crawl space we call an attic. It took me longer to pack everything than it did to unpack. I dusted everything, mended broken items and shattered a couple more, and cleaned the seriously tarnished silver ornaments. No, I didn't think about cleaning them BEFORE I hung them up--remember, I have 'help' hanging the Christmas stuff and I didn't have a chance to even look at the ornaments before they were whisked away and hung on the tree.

Our household is reverting back to normal.

And today is the last day of vacation. Yes, I'm secretly doing the Snoopy dance at the thought of the big/little kid going back to work/school tomorrow. I can settle down in the quiet and start editing TROLL. My goal is to have it finished by the end of January.

Routine is my friend.

The fridge has enough food to last two weeks. I won't even need to cook!

I managed to finish off my Haribo gummi bears yesterday, so they won't tempt me while I try to get back on my weight loss track.

My goals are written and posted. And I even managed to start and finish one of my friend's books on my Kindle yesterday. It was a cozy mystery. It was okay. I figured it out from the get-go, but as a debut book it was a fun read.

I'll leave you with this picture of what has been the norm around my house this week. The children are playing Rayman on the Wii. They are really enjoying it. I think it ranks up there with Mario Galaxy 1 & 2.

Yes, the hubby has an animal pelt warming his legs . . . Her name is Maggie.  :-P

Later, Peeps!

Did y'all miss me?

Probably not.

But that's okay. I pre-wrote all my blogs and had every intention of sending it to my accounts (Facebook, Twitter and Google) and commenting, but that was before I discovered my hubster's new Google pad wasn't totally able to function, plus we didn't have Internet access and had to use his cell to connect to satellites.

Don't ask.

I usually don't. I just nod my head like I understand and say, "uh-huh, yes, honey" Trust me, it's easier my way, otherwise, he'll go into some truly geek-tech jargon and I'm totally lost.

Anyhoo--We went on vacation for nine days, arriving back home late Sunday,the night before my kidlet had her first day of school. But she seems to have weathered her lack of sleep just fine.

We enjoyed a nice vacation in the land of heat, humidity, afternoon thunderstorms and love bugs (though they aren’t in their *love- making* time of the year . . . that’s usually late September), in other words, FLORIDA. I managed to read 2.5 books on the airplane and during our ‘downtime’--when we left the parks early and missed the thunderstorms :-) As much as I love my Kindle, I hate the fact that I had to turn it off during takeoffs and landings. Bummer.

On the writing related front, I managed to think out story #2 in my quadrology--how does a hunky pirate ghost sound? So exciting! To that end, I just ordered four pirate books. Arr, me mateys!
When we go to DisneyWorld and Universal, we walk A LOT.  Anyhoo, this year, my feet survived!! Yay! No blisters! Last year, I had blisters upon blisters, blisters upon calluses and walking was totally NOT FUN. The feet relief was due in part to my wonderful New Balance sneaks with a metatarsal insert AND my rigid walking regime over the last two months. I didn’t wear a pedometer this time around, but I know we easily clocked 10+ miles per day as we tend to walk quickly from one ride to the next one and then walk to another park to do it all over again!

Aug. and Sept, are big months for Latin American and Brit visitors, though the Brits outnumbered the LA’s this time around. It was fun listening to the accents and trying to figure out where they were from. I'm not as good with the Spanish speaking cultures, but English, yes. I also heard Italian, French and a small variety of Germanic languages.

Overhead view of Harry Potter experience

First we visited both parks at Universal , enjoying the Harry Potter experience--a MUST DO, if you get a chance to go--as much as possible considering the area was seriously jammed with people. Srsly, they had to shut that section of the park off because it was over populated. We rode numerous rollercoasters over and over and over again. The blue and red are dueling coasters in the Dragon Challenge, the snow-covered buildings are Hogsmeade, and, of course, Hogwarts is the castle/ride.

*NOTE TO SELF* Do NOT drink butterbeer and then ride the HULK rollercoaster without seriously belching A LOT. Sorry, if that was TMI, but it had to be mentioned—and no, I didn’t get sick. . . just burped a lot, though we did see someone tossing cookies into a trashcan after the 3-D Spiderman ride—not a coaster, but a simulator--what a wuss . . .

After 2.5 days at Universal, we drove to the Wilderness Lodge to enjoy the Disney parks for six days.

Wilderness Lodge from Pool

Disney. . . what can I say? 

Nope it would take up too much room to write it down, you just have to go and experience it. We did the meal plan again this year—basically pre-paid food (one table service{entrée, dessert}, one counter service, and one snack per day per night in a Disney hotel). And yes, I was scared I would go crazy over the food, but I didn’t. If the family got Mickey Mouse ice cream bars, I got a water and ate a Mickey ear and savored the delish bite. I did force myself to eat dessert with our table service coupons. And with all the walking, albeit much standing, I only gained 1.4 lbs upon my weigh-in 12 hours after we flew back into town. All in all, I’m very happy with it. I’m back on track and fully believe I’ll lose that weight gain by next week—

But then again, my 50th B-D is on Monday and hubster made a reservation at Flemings . . . I’ll just weigh-in PRIOR to my B-D dinner. :-)Yeah, I like that plan.
Well, time to go and use my new Mickey Mouse French Coffee press. Cute, huh?

TTFN {Tigger speak for TA-TA FOR NOW}

Swooshing Down the Mountain

I hope you all enjoyed the recipes this last week.  I pre-posted them because I didn't know if I would have Internet or not.  It turns out that I did, but I was on vacation and didn't really want to bother with the blog.  Sorry, but sometimes we need a break, right?

And where did I (and my family) go on vaca?

We went skiing in the Colorado Rockies at Keystone ski resort.  Over the last ten years, we would ski once or twice a winter at Keystone.  Pre-kiddo--we used to ski many other places, but now it's just easier to go to the place where you know all the ski runs and their normal skiing conditions.

Living in Tulsa, it takes us about 12 hours just to drive to Denver, add into that an early start of 4:45 AM.  Add another hour or so (depending on the mountain conditions) to drive to Keystone.  Okay, that's 13+ hours cooped up in the car with the hubster and kiddo. 

Let's just say that I'm over the family bonding and would like a little 'alone' time. 

The drive wasn't too hideous.  I took some pictures of the trip. 

A whole lot of nothing in Kansas

Eastern Colorado isn't much better

Yeah, there's a whole lot of nuthin' in Kansas and eastern Colorado. Very flat and very boring.  So I read.  And that will be the next blog topic!



on the left is the gondola, the specks on the right are people.



This is the view out our condo window.  I had to lean over the railing to get the picture of the gondola and the River Run slope, which is a blue slope (an intermediate run). At the end of the day, skiing down River Run is ugly!  It gets soft and mushy, and add crowded with newbies falling left and right and boarders riding down the slopes at 50 mph.



Breckenridge ski resort are the mountains behind us

 This is a picture of my kidlet and me at the top of Elk Run.  It's on the backside of Keystone's mountain.  She's got the helmet to protect her brainpan . . . and I'm too old to care about my decrepit old brain cells. And she isn't quite as tall as she looks in this picture . . . I was standing slightly downhill from her. 

Yeah, that's my story and I'm sticking with it!

The first day skiing we always put her in ski school.  Why?  Because she won't listen to what we tell her about skiing, so we have to pay someone to do it for us. But then the next three days, she skied with us.  She has no problem keeping up, in fact, she smoked us on a few runs. 

I refuse to ski moguls, but I'll ski anything that's been groomed--blue and black slopes. The steeper it is, the more fun it is to me. Here's a pic of Keystone's trail map. Sorry, it's blurry, but I got it from a huge pdf file. Here's the original--big enough to see.

Tuesday night, I rested my sore legs and weary feet while the hubster and kiddo did a bit of night skiing.  Yes, there are lights, but it's challenging since the terrain looks very flat.  Night skiing definitely teaches you to ski by feel. Kinda of like learning to take some jumps on horseback. Only a few green and blue runs are lit, so the choice of runs is limited.

Wednesday AM, there was a fresh couple of inches of snow. We skied until about 2:30 and then rested because that night we all went night skiing
 . . . and I remembered why I didn't like night skiing.

Keystone night skiing trail map

We skied away from the gondola and made a plan of attack.  And while we were talking a young lady skied up to us and asked about the easy way down.  We hated to tell her that she was on it, with 3 miles down to the base.  She had never skied before and her buddies decided that she needed to try night skiing.  I said, "you are either very gutsy or insane." She replied that it was probably a little of both. 

About halfway down Schoolmarm, I took a rest break.  The kidlet was uphill from me and the hubster was below when a lone ski, sans skier, zipped right into the kidlet's leg, bounced into the air and then sped down the hill and over the cliff.  Hubster--nice guy that he is--popped off his skis to get the errant ski, and nearly went waist deep in a drift.  Ski rescued, we waited for the dude to walk down the slope.  We couldn't see him since we were pretty far below the crest of the cliff. He was quite happy that he wouldn't have to pay the rental place for the pair of skies. Once we hit the bottom, I quit for the night while the hubster and kiddo skied another couple of runs. 

My knees and feet just can't do it any longer.  Of course, it had nothing to do with my being overweight and out-of-shape.

Thursday was another fun ski day as we tackled most of the mountain.  They shut down one of the gondolas due to the high wind.  And I will admit that it was miserable skiing down the backside of the mountain, the top layer of snow was blown away leaving an icy layer, so we ventured to the front face after lunch.

And on Friday, we drove home--let me clarify--the hubster drove home.  We hit blowing snow, in the dark since we left at 4:30 AM, from Keystone until Denver, then a dense fog bank (freaky scary!), but after that it was smooth driving the rest of the way home.

The fuzzy beasts missed us, but we had a dog sitter watching Maggie, Mr. Kato Kitty and Rocky the guinea pig, and she took care of them, i.e. no one died!  Yes, that is a worry since Mr. Kato Kitty turned 21 years old yesterday. 

Yeah, I've had him longer than I've known the hubster!

Well, that's enough blathering for now!

Later, Peeps!

Five More Days!

until school starts. Wow, where has the summer gone? Hubster was bemoaning the fact that we didn't go anywhere for vacation. Of course, I had to point out that we had just come back from a long weekend in the Ozarks, but he said that wasn't the same thing. Guess his idea of a vacation is hopping on an airplane or sitting for more than four hours in a car.

It used to be my job that held us captive--I worked in hospital and it was first come first served on vacation time. Some of the people put their vacation time over a year in advance and always got it, especially around Christmas. I could understand if you are going out of the country or have a special get-together, but it was always the same people year after year who did this--and some of their kids were in college. It really pissed me off that I never got time off around Christmas, especially the year I had to work Christmas day and I had a three year old.--Yeah, I missed Christmas morning. The preferential treatment pissed me off. Glad I don't have to deal with that political crap anymore!

Sorry, that was a digressive rant. Anyhoo, the Hubster's job was holding us back this year. But we have a nice trip planned for Fall break (Disney World, of course!) and we only have to take the kiddo out of school for two days. YAY!

At first, summer break seemed like the days were stagnant, but now the finish line is in place!

And I seriously need to get my ducks in a row.

With the kiddo in school, one of two things will happen.
1) I will write like a maniac,
2) I will sit on my ass eating bonbons and watching judge (my secret addiction) shows, but I also need to,
3) exercise my BUTT off. Yeah, literally. . .

During BIAW last May, I discovered that I CAN write like a fiend. I had a middle grade novel that I wanted to enter into Delacorte's Yearling contest, deadline was 6-30-09. So I had to have my rough draft finished by the end of May. During the last two weeks of May, I wrote 30K words. Not too shabby. This little story is currently out in the query stage.

I have started book #2, and I'm calling it, The Fast and The Faerieous. I'm only 1000 words in, but I don't really have a clue where it's going. My personal goal is to have the rough draft (30-35K words) finished by the week before vacation in October. Why a week before? Because there is so much to do to get the house, yard, pets, and ourselves ready for vacation. I need a week to take care of the extracurricular stuff.

As if finishing one story isn't enough, I decided to add pressure to myself by writing a suspense, currently called Rosewood Manor. I'm 17.5K words into this story with a goal of hitting 70-75K for my rough draft. During my second draft, I usually tweak and tighten, but also fill out my subplots, deepen the characterizations, yadda, yadda, yadda, which ultimately adds 10-20K to my final count.

Finish two books by the first week of October, eight weeks, is it doable? Heck, yes. I'm not setting a daily writing goal but I know roughly how many words I'll need to write--A LOT. :-)
All I need to do is focus and the words will come. Research will happen while the rough draft ferments. And then I'll tackle the second draft.

Who knows? By the end of the year, I might have two more novels to pimp.

So, for those of you with kids or without them, what's your goal for the rest of the year??

Write on!

Swooshing down the slopes

I’m back from skiing. Actually, we got back late Friday night, but I've had laundry to do, email to read, etc, PLUS we finally got our furniture that we've been waiting on for about six months! That story is also blog worthy, so when I find I'm dry of ideas to yatter on about I'll jot it down to fill up one of my days.

Back to Spring Break:
We had four wonderful days of swooshing down the slopes of Keystone, Breckenridge and Vail. Keystone is still my fave since I think it is the most challenging of the three. The intermediate slopes (blue) are as steep as many expert (black) runs. Many of the slopes are half groomed/half moguls, so it adds to the challenge. Vail is a close second for simply the sheer size of the place. I think it has 7 or 8 mountains/bowls to ski off—I’d verify it on the trail map, but hubster put it somewhere. And they have the most groomed black runs I’ve ever seen, though some of Keystone’s blue runs were along the difficulty and steepness factor as Vail’s black runs. Breckenridge is a really nice town, but the slopes are flat and freakin’ crowded, really freakin' crowded. Lift lines took anywhere from 10-30 minutes of waiting. And dodging a bunch of newbie skiers is low on my list of fun things to do. Ugh!

But the spring skiing was awesome. No, I was NOT the chick wearing shorts snowboarding! It was nice not to have to wear all the turtle fur to keep warm—and I have the sunburn/tan to prove it! And yes, I DID slather on sunscreen and still got toasted. Oh, BTW, Burt’s bees lip balm DOES NOT have any SPF factor at all and my lips look like a lizard shedding its skin. Purty, huh?

The kiddo did great after a weak start in the car. The night before we left she started complaining of a headache and ear ache. She's been fighting the cough that seems to be going around and coughing up lung puppies in the process. So, of course, the poor thang was puking in the car most of the way to the mountains—12.5 hours of it. Thank God, I always bring a small trash bag double lined with Wal-Mart bags! And the kiddo hit the bag every time! What a little trooper!

Rachel skied with us every day and kept up with only a couple of wipeouts and one face plant—there’s a reason kiddo’s wear helmets. The face plant happened on the first day when we were on Keystone's North Peak, skiing down Last Alamo. It's a fairly steep run, basically groomed icesince they hadn't gotten any fresh snow in awhile and the daily temps were in the 40's. She did a turn, but an edge caught, and down she went. Normally, on a beginner (green) run she would have stopped right there, but a steep blue--NOPE. She slid for about thirty feet before hubster got her stopped. Of course, she wanted to quit, but SORRY, not happening. We were in the middle of the run with no way out except down. After we got down it was time for a break and she wanted to quit. Surprise! We went to the front side of the mountain after that. But the next day at Breckenridge she got her confidence back.

We’ve discovered she likes skiing bumps (moguls). Too bad, neither hubster nor I can tolerate the bumps any more. The knees just can’t take it, so we tend to ski groomed stuff, unless we venture down a mogul blue by accident.

By the last day of skiing, the kiddo was going full tilt. Her cough seemed to have disappeared--until I looked at her eyes. Yep, conjunctivitis. Once we got home on Friday, I had some eye drops left from a couple of years ago and we doctored her up. Luckily there were enough drops to do the trick.

That's it for now. I'll talk about the books I read on Wednesday. I read one FANTASTIC book that I highly recommend.
Hope you all had a great Spring Break!
Write on! ---yeah, I need to get back into the saddle with that again!

Spring Break!

This is spring break week.

And originally, this blog was going to go dark, but I decided that I'd write a few blogs in advance and auto post them.

Sorry, but I won't be able to respond to any of your comments this week. Though I will read them after I sort through the bazillion and one digests that I'll have to read and/or simply delete.

I love Spring Break, except that no matter where you go there will be crowds. Ugh!

We missed skiing last year, so this year we are going for four days! Woohoo!
Instead of putting the kiddo in ski school, she promised to ski with us without complaining. . . Yeah, I'll believe it when it happens, too! We still have the threat of ski school hanging over her head if she grips too much or doesn't listen to our instructions.

Personally, I think she'll do well. Two years ago we discovered that it works best if I lead the pack with the kid in the middle and hubster batting clean-up (he can pick her up when she falls down--I can't, she's too heavy). As skiers, we like to stick on the blue runs. Neither one of us are very adventurous on the black runs, unless they're groomed. Steeps are okay, just don't give me any freakin' bumps! My knees can't handle it! So she'll just follow my tracks with hubster batting clean up or pick up depending on how much snow the kiddo eats. Every now and then, I think hubster or I will break away to bomb a slope or two and then meet up again.

Now, all we have to do is get through the hell of driving 12 hours to Keystone. Talk about a butt-numbing experience. Seat heaters are a blessing especially if your lower back gets sore sitting, but then again the butt cheeks tend to get sweaty in the process.

Or is that TMI?

Ski on!