Noah's Birthday Weekend 2019

Once again this year Noah chose to forgo a birthday party and take a trip/adventure instead.  This year took us to Boston to the Museum of Science, Paul Revere's house in the North End, and the kid's first experience at the South Boston St. Patrick's Day parade.

We also took on a St. Patrick's Day science lesson in bridge building and weight distribution:)

Basement Project and Sugarloaf Vacation 2019 (aka even more skiing)

Noah's nordic ski season has (finally) come to an end with his team coming in first in their division. He really loved being on this team and is looking forward to being part of it again next year.  With nordic skiing mostly behind us we are starting to take on the project of transforming and rearranging our basement space to make a room for Noah's room down there and keep things cleaner and create more usable space by partitioning things a bit more.

This year's trip to Sugarloaf was one to remember for sure!  This winter has been full of snow and some colder days, but mother nature saved her three coldest days of the year for our trip to Sugarloaf during the first week of March... no joke.  One of the mornings we woke up to -18 degree temperatures at the base with even colder windchills. We had come prepared though, bundled up and had a great time despite the weather.  Our car, on the other hand, didn't handle the cold as well and after sitting for 3 days it needed a jump from mountain security.

In part because of the amazing snow this year, our kids have discovered the glades and LOVE to ski in the glades... all of them... even Audrey.  Ben and Audrey took lessons on the first day so James and Noah were thrilled to be able to ski the more difficult terrain.  However, it was so cold that we didn't make it up some of the more really challenging stuff on top because it was just too cold and windy. After skiing with them for the day Gabe and I realized that they still had some learning to do that couldn't be done at a smaller mountain so they took lessons the next day.  That left us the day to ski with Ben and Audrey... nice easy relaxing ski day, right?!?!? Ben told us that he had gone down the Skidder Trail the day before and wanted to take us on it again.  We naturally didn't believe him at first because that is definitely a black or double black mogul trail that people have died on and I haven't even dared to go down. As it turns out he did, in fact, go down that trail and did it with relatively few falls.  Kudos to the Sugarloaf ski instructors who push the kids to do more than they think they can. The thing they both couldn't stop talking about was getting to ski in Broccoli Gardens.  We had no idea where/what that was so we let them lead the way... it was glades... lots of glades.  They just flew right down weaving in and out of the trees. Grampy and I definitely got hung up a bit more with longer skis and more fear for hitting a tree than the kids had.  This was they day I realized that just because they did it in a lesson at ages 5 and 7 doesn't mean it will be easy for me to do.  The next day after Noah and James' lessons and learning they spent all day in the west mountain glades we decided to leave that to the professional instructors and ski the "regular" trails with them;)  

Snowshoeing, Tubing, and More Skiing

To change things up a bit in between skiing 6 out of 7 days a week (on average) we have had some snowshoeing adventures this year as well.  On an absolutely beautiful day we snowshoed down and around French's Falls park in Livermore Falls.  This is a beautiful walk along the Androscoggin River that we do often in warmer weather, but it is neat to see how different it looks with many feet of snow on the ground.

The kids have also been busy building snow forts and tunnels, as well as putting together almost every puzzle we own in the front room (I swear we do get actual school done in there somewhere too).

This past weekend we took a snowshoe hike that is sure to be one of the highlights of the winter.  We snowshoed up to the face of Bald Mountain, a hike we frequently take in the warmer months. This is a great hike because it isn't long in distance, but it gives a great work-out because it is straight up with amazing views.  In the winter that steep grade also makes for some amazing sliding back down to the parking area.  This can really only be done under these perfect snow conditions we have had this year, but we took advantage and it was well worth the hike up. They kids commented that they thought snowshoeing up was easier than hiking because you didn't have to climb over any rocks or trip over any stumps/roots.  Thanks to our friend, Jessica, who let us borrow the slides her preschoolers use to make it easier to carry up the mountain.

After everyone safely made it back down the mountain on their bums we drove up the road to Mt. Blue State Park for some real sledding with friends.  The kids were troopers and I think glad to have a snowmobile to pull them back to the top:)

Also during this time we made a trip to Black Mountain for some alpine skiing and tubing in their tube park which we had never done before.  There aren't any pictures, but we had so much fun taking advantage of the powder skiing and the super fun time tubing with friends.  We were glad it wasn't too busy because we were all having a blast tubing with friends hooking the tubes to each other in various ways... I think at one point we had 12 or more tube held together for the trip downhill.  All in all a really fun day!