Vacation! (for the weekend)

This month, John was in Morocco for a couple of weeks for work. The second weekend that he was gone, Odin and I went on our own adventure, to Orcas Island in the San Juans.  It was great having our own new and exciting place to go while John was gone. And it had been ages since Odin and I had an adventure to ourselves.

 To get to Orcas Island you have to take a ferry,  boat, or a plane. We opted for the ferry. Technically, it's a boat, but since you can drive cars on it i listed it separately. We boarded the ferry at sunset on Friday. Once we got out to the island it was dark. And the sky was full on stars! 

It rained on and off all day Saturday, but we still had a great time exploring the tide pools, town and going to the highest point in the San Juan islands, Mt. Constitution. On a clear day you can see Mount Rainer! Our visibility was about 10 feet, so we didn't see much. We did find some snow nearby.

 We also had some relaxing intervals of reading in our hotel room. I was devouring a novel and Odin either read or watched cartoons (after all it was his vacation too!).

We had a great dinner in town on Saturday night. Sunday morning we walked into town for breakfast and then relaxed a bit before making the journey home.

Things that make me smile

(in no particular order)

Horses grooming me recprically

Buying coffee and leaving a large tip

Watching horses eat grass

Taking goats for a walk

This guy

Warm sunny days in March (or any month when you least expect it)

Horse lips

Working outside

The healing power of a good conversation

The theater

Each Spring, the elementary students get to go to theater productions thanks to some local arts sponsors. It is a special traveling production, just for the students, during school time. Last week was the first performance that Odin went to with his new school. He told me excitedly the day before, "that we are going to the theater tomorrow and need to dress fancy". Sure enough, Friday morning, he woke up and got dressed properly to go to the play.

The teachers talked to the class about what it meant to go to the play and laid out expectations for attire and behavior. Picking up Odin at the end of the day, it was great to see how many of the students took the works to heart. One of the parent chaperones also told me that our school had the most well behaved students. It is so nice to see how well rounded his education is. I am so pleased with his new school.

Tree skiing

This season, I got a new pair of skis. For those of you keeping track that brings me up to 4 pairs (including the ones I have not skied in over 6 years now). I am still miles behind John.  But this is not about who has what, so much as, what I can do now.
With my new skis, I can now ski in the trees with John and Odin. They have a much smaller turning radius and much more float, so we have all been having fun in the trees hunting down powder. And being able to keep up with your 8 year old on skis: priceless.

Ski weekend

We had a great weekend up at the ski hill. It snowed a number of feet while we were gone in Florida and John was itching to take the Chev Chalet up for the weekend. I did not drive up on Friday with Odin and John, I went Saturday morning, with a buddy!

The snow on Saturday was not so great, but it was fantastic on Sunday. It snowed hard all morning and kept snowing all day. It was family fat ski powder turns today.

It was Winter Carnival weekend so there were snow sculptures (including a slide), a big snow castle, fireworks, and lots of people enjoying the snow.

                                                          Pictures from the drive home.