ski vacation and much more with a very sad farewell

Last week I got to go to SLAS  

The Society for Laboratory Automation and Screening conference is usually out west and 1) I don't fly and 2) no one would pay for my ticket even if I did fly. This year they held it in D.C. so all I had to do was take the metro down. I got to see lots of cool robots.

I even stopped by the Qiagen booth to see what work had to offer.

Kathryn spent last week at her parents place doing the family bonding thing.

On Wednesday Kathryn and I went to a fancy tea and had our nails done. That was a "girly" version of our girls day out and was of mixed success. We even went shopping to prepare for Kathryn and Erena's surprise mini trip with in a trip to Oklahoma.

We had tea at Cafe Anglais which was very nice. The owner was out and chatting with the customers and there were cool English chocolates and import foods for purchase. We had our mani/pedi thing and confessed to each other that we don't actually like mani/pedis. haha

The shopping was successful. It is hard to enjoy spending money so successful is all one could really hope for in that venue.

On friday we went to Scearce's and hiked around in the cold.

Early the next morning we drove to BWI airport. It was Valentines Day.

Kathryn and Erena went to see Yoshi and join him for a company party.

We got some very cold wind chills (-15) and a light fluffy snow.

David wisely used the snow-blower instead of trying out my slow shoveling technique.

On the 15th we drive off to Massanutten  for a Ski House vacation.

This turned out to be a gift vacation from Scearce's. We went with Kathryn and Erena and Grandma Scearce and Aunt Licia and Nana and Aunt Judy. We stayed at side-by-side apartments/condo's. The bath tub shown above captivated Megan and never let her go. She and Erena spent hours and hours swimming in that thing.

Pax stayed with my dad and Mary and their dogs for the whole week.

Unfortunately because of his new job David has now vacation time so Monday morning he joined me in my trip back to Maryland (I was picking up Kathryn and Erena from the airport) so that he could go to work. We were happy that our vacation overlapped with a Federal Holiday so at least he got to join us for breakfast Monday.

We had a sad quick parting and I rushed off to the airport.

Kathryn rode on the edge of storms all the way to Maryland and then we drove on the edge of it all the way back to the ski house.

The roads were pretty dicey but we made it.

It was snowing like crazy as you can see out this window.

We tried to take the kids up to the big pool but we got turned around by a very grumpy cop and some very slippery roads. 

Side note: I have decided that my next car will be all wheel drive.

We went to the close pool and had a good time...

Until Megan tried to drown herself again.

She slipped off the edge of the handicap ramp you see here into 5 ft water and scared me big time hovering under the water with arms out spread.

Ug!

We spent lots of big group meals together and this was the first.

The snow stopped. So we went off to the ski shop to grab things for the kids.

For the girls it mostly  went like this.

After they got too cold we went inside for coloring. The girls went down for naps and it was time for Kiernan to try.

He skied down the golf course hill across the street. 

It went extremely well I am preparing the video.

In other Kiernan development news, we are trying more protein in his diet and its giving him more energy. His new love 'eggs and soldiers' .

Wednesday was supposed to be girls day on the ski slopes. Unfortunately our extremely kind free babysitters got bamboozled into a thousand year time share pitch to earn us some free water park passes. They got back after lunch time. Kathryn and I went to the pool and the sauna and the outdoor hot tub (snow in our hair and 108 at our feet)!   There were naps and the arrival of Aunt Judy and then getting the stuff loaded up but finally we made it to the slopes.

We did one free ski down walk up run to test out our equipment. We decided that a trip back was essential.

On the 19th (David's birthday and Mom's birthday) I took mom up to watch the sunrise over the mountains.

Then we went to Luray Caverns. I was hoping for a nature hike of some sort but it was 0 degrees outside.

Luray caverns is 54 degrees all year long!

It felt so very warm.

Kiernan decided it was a Minecraft cave.

He wishes you to imagine a pickaxe in his hand.

Megan got fascinated by the princess column

She loved the princess bit and the skeleton bit.

Here is the story: A Native American girl (17-23 yo) died and was buried above the  caverns and her body or her skeleton was eventually pushed down by rain and gravity through the ceiling of the caverns. 700 years later cave explorers found it and were alarmed. Bone scientist told them that it was a very old skeleton of a girl and to honor her the cave explorers called her the princess and named the column by which her skeleton was found the princess column.

I have told this story many dozens of times in the last few days.

We went to the pool and called David and sang Happy Birthday to him.

We made a big lasagna and spice cake meal for Nana and sang to her as well.

The next morning Kiernan went to ski school. He was excited and it was freezing cold.

It was so cold that I kept him inside until the last minute.

I took lots of pictures of him and he took lots of pictures of me. Then he went out in the 4 degrees (not including windchill) for the day. That is him with the black bib and jacket and the red helmet.

We took Kiernan out of school for this vacation. Due to the holiday and the many snow days he didn't miss too much of it but we brought a lot of reading materials and his school binders.

This was a great read. Real ski school is different from book ski school though.

When I picked him up many hours later he was a little shaken.

His instructor says that he did very well. Kiernan said that it was terrible.

They agreed that he learned to snowplow and to use the lift and that he was a good listener and very obedient. They both agreed that the pre-lunch part of the day when they were in the learning area (mountain cruisers area) all went well. Kiernan said that at lunch he got an upset stomach so the rest of the day was bad and he almost cried. James (the instructor) said that after lunch they went up on the lifts and that Kiernan was freaked out by the lift.

One way or another there was a great deal of contemplation after class.

 

Encouragingly his Endermen now skis and Kiernan offered to join us on the slopes later in the week.
Discouragingly he chose the pool over a skiing on Sunday.
After that it was all pool all the time.

On Friday David came back!

We were all thrilled. 

Then it started to snow.

(Kathryn to the far left Judy and David to the right)

It snowed too hard. It snowed all night Friday and all day Saturday. It snowed so much that they closed all the roads and we got turned away from the mountain again. A transformer blew and we lost power.

We also lost Wi-Fi.

Here is sad David without Wi-Fi.

Here are the girls admiring all the new sledding snow.

On Sunday the sun came out and the roads opened and we used Licia's hard earned free passes to go skiing. Yay for exchanging water-park passes for lift tickets!

Then we drove home like speed daemons to make it to my sweet Aunt Lydia's funeral.

In the middle of the week of fun I got a heartbreaking call from Mary that her sister, my Aunt Lydia had gone into the ER feeling poorly and had unexpectedly died.

In stead of clearing the drive and going to pick up the puppy we put on our black clothes and grabbed the crate and rushed off to a sad family gathering.

Aunt Lydia was an amazing, sweet, feisty, smart, loving woman and I will miss her very much.