Snow fun!!

We had so much fun last weekend! A's JROTC instructor is really involved with his group and plans lots of outdoor activities for the kids. They sponsor several ski trips each winter and welcome the families to join their students, so we took advantage and tagged along on Saturday. I hadn't been skiing since before we were married (19 years ago!!!) and had only skied a couple of times before that, so J and I took a beginner's class together. Both the JROTC leader and his wife teach the beginner's class and are fantastic instructors. It "clicked" for me this time, which it hadn't ever done before. Skiing had always consisted of me squeezing my knees together and splaying my feet in a desperate attempt to hold an ackward wedge as I careened down the slope. Skiing was always both a slightly spiritual and terrifying experience. Spiritual in that I consistently witnessed the hand of God miraculously move other skiers out of my Kamakaze path. Terrifying because I felt as out of control as I looked. This time was different; it was fun! This was A's second time and he's caught on really quickly. He'd much rather be snowboarding, but he's learning to enjoy skiing, too. J was a trooper! K tried to learn how to ski but wimped out and spent the afternoon sipping $5 hot chocolate in the lodge. (Big baby!) J pushed himself through lots of frustration without much progress and ended up deciding he wants to keep learning. He managed to successfully take down 2 hapless Germans before having the tables turned and being knocked down by another little girl. One of their skis (the jury is still out on who's) popped up and whacked him in the mouth chipping his front tooth. Hopefully it won't take too long to get him a dental appt. Matt spent the day alternately sledding with the kids and forking over wads of cash for overpriced cocoa and french fries. The younger kids passed out on the bus trip home which gave me some quiet time to read.
Our area was hit with a freak frozen rain storm while we were skiing so we arrived to a world coated with 1/4" of solid ice. Talk about a slow drive home! Our driveway is up a narrow little dead end road that's shared with three other homes. The only way to fit our cars in the driveway is to drive up the end driveway (on an incline) and back up while turning sharply into ours. My hope was that if I had enough momentum going up the driveway I'd be able to slooooowly back into our spot with room left for Matt to park when he got home. I must not have spoken my wishes out loud, because the car clearly didn't understand my expectations and had a plan all it's own. I was barely able to get the wheels to turn, just enough to be angled right at the front bumper of our waiting van, and there I sat. The ice was so thick I couldn't go forward to straighten it out, and continuing backward would have plowed us into our van. I climbed out and slid across the driveway hoping I could find something to throw under the wheels for traction when I heard the ice crunching again and looked up just in time to see the car sliding sideways into the van. Banana was still buckled in the backseat so I hurried to get her (note to self: do NOT try to run on ice again, Dummy!) and instead discovered that German cobblestones have lasted for centuries because they're really hard. And unforgiving to human heads. K came up with the brilliant plan to dig up loose dirt from around the shrubs out front and throw it on the ice. (She gets her brains from me!) It worked like a charm so we completely covered the driveway and road before Matt came home. So, if you don't have salt to deice with try dirt! This is the first day I haven't sported a headache and I can finally turn my neck again, so the self-inflicted mild whiplash is losing it's grip. Maybe I need to buy some golf shoes for winter walking over here...