A Momma's Take: Long time, no motivation, until now.

Well, I knew the pressure would be off a little not having Lilah's blog book motivating me to blog often. It feels like forever since I have sat down to write something profound. But every time I think I should, I have trouble coming up with some theme, or clever idea to get me started. This has been a horrible winter for sickness for me and Lilah. Shannon seems to be catching things here and there but never as bad. Lilah's poor little nose has been running so much that I should have bought stock in Boogie Wipes. And I just keep rotating between flu and cold. I am ready to start feeling better, and have no choice but to feel better. Because here I am, one day before the half marathon that is surely going to kick my butt. But I will discuss my survival (or not) of that event when it is over. Needless to say, constant whining around our house, combined with lack of exercise and not much adult interaction has put me into a funk. And I hate funks. So this is where the story gets happy.

Luckily in the middle of all of this, a weekend in Tahoe with (some of) my best friends from college. Last weekend we rented a cabin in Truckee and headed to snow. I love getting together with my college "family." It is so easy and comfortable, and a place to just be myself. Which I don't think I have allowed myself to do in a long time. However, there were some definite and noticeable changes with this visit. Namely the cries of little ones. Three babies, all under 18 months, in the same house for an extended weekend. Hilary and Jeff and Tegan (9 mos) and Kevin, Van, and Makenzie (17 mos) made the trip up from the Bay Area. And poor Sara and Aub, down from Portland, were in the middle of the chaos and trying to find the humor in an endless stream of meltdowns. Can you say GOOD birth control ;) Luckily none of the kids seemed to reach breaking point at the same time, so it was usually just one kid at a time that was being hustled off to try and get down for a nap or bed.

The worst part of the whole experience was realizing that my child was the brat of the group. Both Tegan and Mak have spent a lot of time around other kids and apparently I have been lax with Lilah and getting her playing with other kids because she not only did not want to share but she didn't want the other two to have any toys, sit on stairs she might sit on, stand and hold any chair or ottoman that she might need to use, and would get very angry when they weren't following her very vocal demands. But she finally started to relax a little just as it was time to pack up and go home.

The snow condition were not great. They hadn't had a fresh storm in awhile and it was warm and sunny. So it was icy, packed snow. Nothing powdery about it. The snowboarders made it up to Northstar one day and stayed on the groomed runs. They came back a little sore and feeling like that they hadn't been in a few years. But had a great day. The kids got out and played in the back yard a little but it was icy and hurt when they fell down, so they would only be out for a few minutes at a time. And there was the fateful cross country trip that was worthy of the camera crew for Jackass. We decided to go to the local center that was only a few miles from the house. It is a well know cross country center, but unknown to me was on the side of a hill. (Hills, or lack there of, are why I cross country ski and NOT downhill). After trying to pull ourselves up the hills in the icy conditions, we didn't quite reach the top when we tried to turn around and go back down. Needless to say we came off the mountain with some glorious crashes to give some aches and pains, (hopefully Sara's tail bone has recovered), the first aid snowmobile guy's help to get Hilary off the ground, and I was walking with Lilah on my back while the others carried my skis back to the lodge.

And now for the best part, the pictures.