Being Good At Family

Hey there!  Yes it's me.  I know I totally fell into the pit of being overwhelmed and overburdened with a thousand things to do with school and the holidays, which left me no time to write.  I wrote a bunch of blogs in my head, but none of them made it to the computer.  Looking forward to the day where I can think something and Suri will write it down for me.   I even got a little bah humbuggy at one point because of how crazy everything was.  Even though I still have much going on-like helping to produce the Variety Show at the girls' school-I decided to put everything else I should be doing right now on hold (changing sheets, cleaning, getting cat litter) to do the one thing I like to do for me.  Writing.  So with that here's a little story about a New Year's Eve Day trip we took last week.  (Was it really only LAST week.)

Over the holidays we didn't have any family in town which was (sorry parents) kinda nice.  I mean don't get me wrong, I love when my parents or Andy's parents come and spend Christmas with us.  The kids love them being there and it's nice to have a big family together for the holidays.  However, every three years it's also kinda nice to not entertain parents for a week or more.  This year was that year.  So there was more hanging out and just doing nothing, which is good for us since we are always doing something every damn minute of every damn day.  The only bad part about doing nothing for a family who is very active, is that after a while we start to go a little stir crazy.  So we decided that on New Year's Eve, during the day, we would drive to the mountains to a sledding park. 

One of the advantages of living here in Southern California is that we are so close to the mountains to go sledding anytime in the winter if we want.  Even though we hadn't had any rain yet last week, the sledding parks all make their own snow.  The other great thing was that it was actually cold here this Christmas.  In fact while we were in the 50's here on Christmas day my in laws were sweating it out in the 70s in Rhode Island.  Crazy!  Since it was so cool here it was even colder in the mountains which was perfect for the snow making and sledding.  

I found a place on line that is only about an hour from our house, called Mt. Baldy.  When we got there we were to purchase tickets to take a "scenic lift" to the top of the mountain where we could do the snow tubing.  They also have skiing and snowboarding but we weren't going that crazy for one day.  After we bundled up and purchased our tickets we walked up a little hill to the lift.  That's when we realized the lift chairs were only for 2 people.  Last time I counted there were 5 of us, and three of us are kids.  Huh.  How was this going to work?  I wasn't crazy about the idea of Sonya going by herself, and sending her with one of the girls could prove disastrous.  I didn't need a fight to break out on the lift and someone pushed off onto the side of the mountain.  No worries though.  She wasn't allowed to go alone or with one of the girls unless she was 14.  That would have been nice to know BEFORE we bought our tickets. They did let us know she could ride with another adult who was alone and wanted to go up the mountain.  Oh yes-let me put my 11 year old on a ski lift with some stranger for 20 minutes who could be a Jared from Subway for all I know!  I don't think so.   Oh and by the way-it was seven degrees at the top of the mountain.  SEVEN!!  Now I know there are a lot of your out there who that freezing temperature might not bother so much and probably think we are big pussies.  However to those of us who just went through a 55 degree Christmas and were complaining of how cold we were, making fires in our fireplace every night,  seven degrees would have killed us.  

Andy and I made the decision to see what we could do about getting our money back, then figuring out what we could do to salvage the day from there.  It was of course greeted with a barrage of questions from the girls who were so looking forward to sledding.  

"We're not going?"

"Not here."

"But why?"

"Because Sonya can't ride the lift by herself and it's colder up there than it is down here even."  They were already freezing in the 32 degree temp.  

"So we aren't going to go sledding at ALL??"

"I don't know yet.  We will figure it out."

"But..."

"We will see!"


Neither one of us was optimistic about it being easy to get our money back, but turns out it was!  They were very nice about it after we explained that we had no idea about the age for the chairlift.  So we were happy we didn't lose any money on it, but now what the hell do we do?  We had decided to go to this mountain because it was closer than the one in Big Bear.  Were we even in the right direction of heading to the other one?  Unfortunately, it took us a bit to find out since there was no service on the mountain.  Once we got to the bottom I found that the other place I had looked at was less than an hour from where we were.  Since we had left the house so early it was only 11am at that point, so we decided to go for it.  

We arrived at the tubing park about an hour later.  No traffic at all thank goodness!  This place was right off the side of the road, no lift, and cheaper than the other place.  So win win!  We went and got our tickets.  Georgia and I made a trip to the disgusting outhouses.  

Side note here-Why, in the year 2016, have we not figured out a better way to keep an outhouse clean?  Those things are the most disgusting places on earth.  I am always so grossed out when I go in one.  I have been in nicer ones that are brought in for outdoor weddings or other such things, but then they are usually newer and not used at all yet.  The ones on the mountains though are just so incredibly gross. I just tell the girls the whole time we are in there, "whatever you do, don't look down."  I gag now just thinking about it.  Back to the main story...

After we paid and grabbed our tubes, we headed to one of the smaller hills because the girls were a little nervous and wanted to start there.  To be honest I was fine starting there too.  Sonya and Georgia went down almost immediately raving about how much fun it was and climbed the stairs to go again. Lana though.  Well Lana and I spent 10 minutes on that first little hill together.  She was nervous to go down, I sat there trying to convince her everyone else was still alive after sledding, and she would be too.  I think it was that fact that she had to go on her belly head first that freaked her out.  She would start to lay down  and then say  "No, no, no, I don't want to."  Andy claimed I was babying her, but I know how Lana is.  She has always been this way.  It takes her a minute to try anything new, food, swimming, jumping off the diving board, skiing, sledding, bike riding, roller blading, whatever.  She is convinced something bad is going to happen to her.  I knew as soon as she did it though she would love it.  

I'm not sure exactly what it was that made her finally go.  At one point I gave up trying to convince her  and went down without her to show her it was fine.  Not to long after that, she went with me and that was that.  There was no stopping her.  She loved it as I knew she would.  

When we first got there all three of the girls agreed they weren't going near the big hill.  Even after Lana had been going down the smaller one, she pointed to the big hill and said, 

"There is no way I'm going down that one!"

I reminded her that she didn't want to go down the little one at first and look how much fun she was having.  So she said,

"Okay maybe I will at some point but NOT today."

"That's fine," I told her.  

At the end of our hour we were all riding down that big hill.  And we were all loving it.  It is only an hour you pay for at a time.  You can go more, but then you pay more.  At first I thought-an hour that's it?  But trust me, after walking up those stairs a bunch of times you are exhausted and done after your hour.  At one point we all went down together which was comedic.  I laughed so hard when, at one point, Andy was trying to push us all down the hill together, and Sonya and Georgia accidentally broke free leaving Andy holding on to Georgia's mitten at the top of the hill. 

Andy and the girls going down the hill together.

It was one of the best family days we've had as a family and a great way to end the year.  The girls keep talking about how they want to go back.  It was fairly easy too, minus the detour we made to the other mountain an hour away.  I was proud of us that we found a way to salvage the day even though we ran into a problem and our original plan didn't work out.  It was a good lesson for all of us.  Especially for me, because when my plans get thrown off I tend to get anxious.  It was one of those days where I thought to myself, "We are good at family!" 

*(credit to that line goes to the show The Goldbergs, which if you aren't watching you should be!)

Me and Lana

Georgia, Sonya and Andy

Happy 2016 everyone!  Hope to write more for you in this year and here's to everyone finding a day where they feel they are good at family too.  I know all to well how some days that is so hard to do.  

Sonya and Georgia

Historic Weather

Yes, this happened at my house this weekend.  My house in Burbank.  BURBANK, CALIFORNIA.  You know right outside of Los Angeles, where it never does this?  It was crazy.  It came down more like slush, than like snow, but we're calling it snow.  It even accumulated on Andy's car where he was getting his hair cut a couple miles away.  In my 15 years of living in L.A., I've never seen anything close to this here.  The girls went nuts.  I went nuts!  The entire neighborhood was outside yelling and screaming for ten minutes.  I mean it's just not the kind of thing you see in Los Angeles.  Ever.  The best part was the girls running around laughing, screaming, and yelling.  Sonya was the loudest shouting,


"WE'RE GOING TO HAVE SNOW TO PLAY WITH IN OUR BACKYARD!!!!"  


Yeeeeaaahhhh...Weeeeellll... it is still Los Angeles.  So even though we did have snow for ten minutes, this is what was left after another ten.

Not really snowman building material per se.  Still, it was a fun ten minutes, and something I'm sure the girls will remember for a long time.  

Snow Day!

This past weekend we took the girls up to the mountains to the snow for some sledding and fun.  This is another nice thing about living here in Southern California.  It only took us one hour to go find some snow to play in.  Then we got to leave it behind.  No shoveling, no long days of being freezing cold, just drive, play and go home.  I'm starting to see why so many people do love living here.  There was a long period of time when I hated it here.  I really don't hate it so much anymore.  I still don't love it, but  perhaps I'm  getting used to it, who knows?  I will say I still hate it when I get stuck in traffic at 1pm in the middle of the week, or I have to take the 405 anywhere.  But there are a lot of pluses to living here, and being able to go play in the snow then leave it behind is certainly one of them.

Preparing to go to the snow is like preparing to go to the beach.  I have to bring extra clothes to change the girls into, towels, snacks, a sled (instead of a boogie board), coats, mittens, hats etc.  So it takes me getting everything ready the night before.  You know because I don't have enough to do.  But I do like going to the beach and the snow, so I suck it up. 

We left early in the morning and the drive was really quick.  This was a new place someone had told me about, and it is so close to us!  We got to the "snowplay" area and managed to find a place to park quickly.  We got the girls all ready and off we went.  There was a big area of flat ground with snow, and behind small hills to sled down.  Sonya was excited, Lana was iffy and Georgia wanted not much to do with this whole situation.

We got to the area where people were sledding.  Sonya went down a few little slopes and then wanted to go down the bigger one with Andy.  I was trying to convince the other two to go down the little hills with me.  Lana flat out refused to get on the sled no matter what.  Georgia was hesitant, but went with me down a couple of hills and didn't hate it.  Sonya was the adventurer though.  She went down the big hill a number of times with Andy.  Then I went down with her once.  Sledding when you're a kid is exciting, fun and not at all scary, but as an adult...let's just say I screamed like a little girl the whole way down.  It was still damn fun though, even if it made pee my pants just a bit.

Not long after we arrived, I realized I had to use the bathroom toute de suite.   Fortunately, and unfortunately there were outhouses nearby.  Of course upon hearing I was going to the bathroom, Lana and Georgia wanted to go.  Let me tell you people something now.  You have NOT lived until you've been in an outhouse with a 2 and 3 year old.  I mean they're so clean and inviting, why wouldn't you want your whole family in there?  Except for the fact that I could barely fit myself in there with my huge winter coat.  I just kept the lid down on the seat until go time for fear of one of the girls getting knocked in with all the um...grossness.  Oh and they are sooooo gross.

 Why is it that we live in an age when you can see people when you talk to them on the phone in your pocket, you can look up a restaurant anywhere in the world and get directions to it with that same small device, but if you have to pee outside?  You get not much better than a hole in the ground with walls.  Can someone work on that please?  

I told both girls to close their eyes while I opened the lid and went.  Then I held Lana and let her hover while she went.  GG decided not to go.  Smart girl.

Back to the fun!  We built a little snowman and sledded some more.  I continued to try and convince Lana to come on a ride down the hill with me to no avail.  As it got closer to lunch time everyone started to get hungry, so we decided it was time to leave.  It was then that Lana decided to hope on the sled for a ride back to the car, as Andy dragged it behind him.  Sonya was on the back of the sled and I was walking far behind trying to keep hold of Georgia as best I could.  The poor thing had zero balance in the snow.  Lana was finally having a good time on the sled. I watched as they went down little slopes and I could hear them both squeal with excitement.  This was good, because now maybe next time we came back Lana would actually go down a hill on the sled.

I was a bit behind them as they made their way to the car.  There was a little slope and a snowbank right before the space the cars were parked along the side of the road.  I saw them go over the slope and then I saw then stop completely.  When I came upon the scene, Lana was crying and Andy looked up at me with an "Ooops" look on his face.  Lana turned around to face me with a bloody lip.  They had tipped when heading down the slope.  Lana wasn't holding on to the sled and hit face first into the snow bank.  So much for ever getting her back on the sled again.   She cried for a few minutes, but Andy and I kept making a big deal about how cool it was that she got a snow injury.  She wasn't buying it.  We kept saying, "but wasn't the sled fun?"  Her reply, "NO!  Dat was not fun!"

She eventually calmed down and we did manage to convince her that she had fun before the fall.  I think she even might have even been convinced that her bloody lip was a cool result.   Figures, the one kid that was afraid to get on is the one who gets hurt when she does get on.  Luckily, it wasn't that bad of an injury and she was fine.  I'd like to say she'd forget it by the time we get back to the snow next season, but my kids have memories that date back to the womb.  Well, almost.  The good news for Lana is that summer is just around the corner and even though she's not much for the snow, that kid LOVES the beach.  Although, I doubt she'll be trying out a boogie board any time soon.