January has been a blur and I can’t believe we’re almost into my favorite month of the year: Ambruary (so it was affectionately named by a friend due to my birthday, anniversary and Valentine’s Day within the same week).
There have been a lot of happenings so here are a few updates.
Return to Winter
What I’ve loved the most about living in Midway is our return to winter with fun ice skating, sledding and skiing, oh my!
I’m incredulous that just five minutes from our house is the Nordic ski venue for the 2002 Salt Lake Games. Bode and I have had a blast skiing at Soldier Hollow twice a week for his lessons and am sad that will be wrapping next month. But I’m not sad about all the trail passes I’ve been accruing from volunteering.
We didn’t budget for downhill season passes so we enrolled the kiddos in the local rec center’s program for six weeks of half-day lessons at Sundance Ski Area. It would be totally ideal if not for Hadley. She’s a level 6 skier and wants to tackle the moguls and harder runs. We signed her up for Level 6…but she’s the strongest skier there and so they’ve bumped up some other kids (like Bode) who are definitely not level 6 and have consequently dropped the level of difficulty. It justifiably infuriates bored Hadley to ski easy runs all day and so I’ve been on the phone every week either demanding a refund or that they give us what we paid for: level 6 instruction. They have three more weeks to get their act together or Hadley might combust.
Bode and I had a memorable mother-son date skiing at Park City and as a total bonus: he didn’t get sick. Twice. And make use cancel our trip. Yes, Beaver Creek: I’m talking about you.
My friend Julie texted to see if anyone wanted to ski Park City so last week, we had our first Snowmamas: The Next Generation meetup. It was so fun to skip out during the day and ski to our heart’s content. We’re going to try to make it a regular thing if life doesn’t get in the way. 
You know, those inconveniences like family, responsibilities and jobs.
The Jobs
I announced a few months ago that I was taking a new part-time position with an awesome travel company that plans luxury vacation to Central and South America. I loved the owners, loved the company but just didn’t love what I was doing. It didn’t tap into my skillset at all (lots of numbers, spreadsheets and details) whereas my talents are writing, community building and marketing. I was feeling trapped because I didn’t want to bail on these wonderful people but also knowing I couldn’t give the position my all. Our family has a lot of daunting things ahead of us: putting in our yard, building out our basement and trading in my 2003 Honda Pilot. And even though I wasn’t making very much money, I still had a regular paycheck so, I stuck to it.
I got my out when the owner recently emailed me a questionnaire about my feedback thus far with the job. I had forgotten we were on a 3-month trial period and I was relieved when we both reached the consensus that the position just wasn’t a good fit for me. Now, onto something that is!
My friend Krista and I met at the Chicks Who Click conference in 2009. She was the brilliant Marketing Director at Park City Mountain Resort and I was building my empire at The Denver Post. 
I helped her launch her groundbreaking Snowmamas community, the first of its kind in the ski industry and we’ve wanted to collaborate on a new project together for years…but the timing was never right.
Well, last year she left her job as Sr. VP at Powdr and with my recent move, we are finally making it happen with our new community, OutdoorsyMoms.com! Many more details to come but in the interim, follow us on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter as we build this community that will go behind encouraging moms everywhere to play outdoors but to also form deeper connections with each other and ourselves.
Onward and upward for 2017!
I'm a Canadian-born mom of two, former Denver Post columnist, family travel writer, editor of MileHighMamas.com and 9News contributor. Expert on all things Utah, Denver, family and travel. Lover of laughter and life. Happily married to a man obsessed with growing The Great Pumpkin. 