Good gracious, who writes a blog post entitled “the winter of my discontent” and then doesn’t write again for the rest of the month?! It’s been a whirlwind for sure but I’m happy to say that winter did eek out a brief comeback and I was able to have a couple of great ski days to finish out the season.
Ski Buddies
Bode and I went skiing with friends Porter and Julie and we had a blast! The last time we skied with Porter in January, he ended up getting hauled away in an ambulance so we were thankful everything went perfectly. The snow was soft, the sun was out and it was an awesome reminder of why we love this sport so much. 
We celebrated Jamie’s mom’s birthday the night before and while we waited for our food to arrive, Bode entertained everyone for a half hour with all of his silly jokes and brain teasers. Well, my boy was primed and ready when there was an open mic moment while we waited in the looong line at the base of Silverlode. The brazen boy of mine skied right up and told his compelling, “What is brown and sticky?” joke. And the answer: “A stick.” Duh. I laughed louder than anyone because I’m his mom.
We were also thrilled to see Cosmo, BYU’s mascot shredding the terrain park. As we were skiing down, we overheard an adoring snowboarder say “he has the voice of an angel,” which is particularly mind-blowing because I didn’t think he talked.
The day was non-stop fun and even though I’m not superstitious, I know the reason. As we drove to the resort, someone had attached a “Good Luck” balloon to a roadside carcass. God knew we needed a win and delivered His message through roadkill.
I had such an awesome time that I went skiing by myself the following week. Usually I hate to go solo–it’s one of the few sports I don’t enjoy by myself–but Park City had fresh snow, sunny skies and I skied the strongest of this season. It was one of those ski days I never wanted to end!
But alas, I had to race back to pick-up Hadley to take her to a two-day volleyball tournament in Salt Lake City. It’s been a tough season for her. She switched to being the setter and started out strong but following her accident, she had to miss the first tournament. Even though she barely missed a practice, there were some drills she couldn’t do those early weeks. She is 1 of 3 setters so the coach benched her and has made little effort to involve her, which made the problem even worse because when you’re not playing, you’re not learning the rotations or the position. I could start a rant about a myriad of other frustrations all of the other parents share but I’ll stop there. Unfortunately, the club coaches are also the high school coaches so no one wants to burn bridges. We’ll need to enroll her in BYU’s volleyball camp this summer to get her up to speed.
The good news is this coach did not attend the tournament and the substitute coach played her every single game for two days. And she did great! They won all of their games Friday night and were on a total high (they’ve lost pretty much every game this season). But those victories set them up for a day of defeats the next day. They got bumped up to the gold medal bracket and these teams were en par with my high school team’s level of play. So, we got HAMMERED. But if you have to spend two days watching these girls play volleyball, at least they’re cute.
My job will start slowing down after a big event I have on April 12th. I feel like I’m getting more of a handle on things and am enjoying the position and my co-workers. I plan to drop down to a four-day work week soon; it’s a 3/4-time position but it has been all-consuming up until this point, leaving little time for anything else. It doesn’t pay well enough to justify my 1.5-hour commute five days a week so I’m hoping once things slow down I’ll be able to dedicate more time to Mile High Mamas and other freelance projects because money is still really tight with a mountain of medical bills (thanks to the snowboarder who refuses to pay for Hadley’s accident) and our backyard. Jamie calls the next two months “hell” because we’ll be hauling in tons of rocks and landscaping our half-acre backyard. My garden will have to wait for another year…this summer, I’ll just be happy with grass.
We’re still not loving this house (maybe we never will) but goshdarnit, we have the most gorgeous plot in all of Midway so we can at least make our yard something to be enjoyed.
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. 