Family Fun

It was that time of year again when the whole family packs up the car and heads to the mountains of Massunutten.

This year brought something totally out of the norm...real snow....the kind that falls from the clouds created by cold temperatures. In past years, the snow was made each night by large machines blowing icy stuff on the various runs, while dirt and rocks lined the path of the nightly slick and daily slushy snow.

But after the snowy year Virginia received, the slopes were covered with a lovely blanket of something special.

Sommer took to the slopes ready for her second year of skiing. She was a real trooper, even after I made her crash last year.
I think we could call her our official "ski bunny."

This "bunny" had a nasty face plant in the snow while working on his snowboarding techniques. We were so proud of his war wounds.

Calvin loves to snowboard. This year, Kenny came up and gave some lessons to tweak Calvin's abilities just a bit. By days end, Calvin was whipping down the "black diamonds." He loved it so much, he stayed until the blasted slope closed at 10 pm.

Here at the top of the mountain, two goats hung out with the skiers.

This is our newest skier, Ethan. He had two one hour lessons and came out of the gates with gusto. He mastered the chairlift and dreams of conquering the black diamond trails next year.

It is so much fun doing things like this with your kids! I love that they are getting older and want to get outdoors and do adventurous stuff! I only wish Garth could have joined us but his newly formed bunion number two has been giving him problems. He was a champ and hung out with Ashton and Tate all day.

But don't despair, Garth (and the rest of the family) spent the previous day, at the water park. Garth loved the lazy river, floating in an ever so relaxed state for most of the day. Just kidding. He was actually found triple tubing it down the water slides making innocent mothers scream for their lives as tube and man teetered on disaster.

We love taking our annual trip to Massunutten.

I thought a lot about my dad on this trip. I am so grateful he took the time to teach me so many fun skills. I always revel in the fact I am pretty good at a lot of things! I owe my bowling, hunting, fishing, hiking, downhill skiing, cross country skiing and golfing talents to you dad! Thanks POPS!

The TRIP!

Sommer dancing with Pluto...and loving every minute of it!

Ethan taking Tate for a little drive. We loved that the older kids could go off by themselves and help out the little ones too!

Garth couldn't wait to see the "stunt" show! Here is the final explosion...so cool.

Riding with Grandpa.

Garth collects these creatures...not talking about our children.

Donald, Mexican style! Ole'!

It cracked me up that the Disney characters have to stay in "character." To Belle I said, "You look pretty, love the hair." She replies in her sing song voice, "Well thank you dear. The Beast will be glad to hear it looks so lovely today."

More fun with Pop-pop.

Kids in order of goofiness!

Our trip to Disney was quite a "trip."

I wouldn't call our vacation experience one filled with warmth and sunshine, health and vigor, or free of flight delays. It was filled ironically enough with some rather "goofy" mishaps, things out of our control of course, that created a trip we will never forget.

Where oh where do I begin:

How about we start with our big snowstorm that came the day before our departure. After dumping a record 27 inches, Northern Virginia pretty much closed down. This of course meant our flight was cancelled. We didn't despair for two reasons, we had purchased travel insurance (who buys that anyway...we just happened to!) and our travel agent was already rescheduling our flight and stay for Monday. Sunday morning brought the dreaded news that the airports would be closed for yet another few days cancelling our rescheduled Monday departure. Travel agent Lynn came to the rescue once again, changing everything for Tuesday.

With fingers crossed, we woke up at 3:30 am to make our 6:30 flight to Orlando...for our magical?...and warm?...vacation!

And amazingly, we flew out of Virginia on our way to Disney world...barely. The following day, another blizzard arrived and dumped another 10 inches on our already snowed in state, closing the airports once again. But we had made it out and were ready to have some FUN!

We had been hoping our Florida weather would be clear and WARM! But we were not so lucky. Day one brought a lovely rain. While warm, it was wet!

Day two, three and four were COLD. Highs barely reaching the mid 50's with that blasted arctic air streaming down from the north...thanks a lot wind chill. If only I had thought about taking along my UGGs and parka!

Day five brought a nice combo of both RAIN and COLD.

Day six was heavenly. The skies cleared and the sun brought forth warmth. But this day also brought a trip to the ER for Grandma Donna. After a trip to Celebration (nice name for a hospital...what would one be celebrating?), the local hospital, Donna found out she had a 8 mm kidney stone. So big, it required surgery. After spending two days "celebrating...not," she was scheduled for her ultrasound surgery to bombard the stone...THE MORNING OF OUR DEPARTURE for later that evening. Donna was a super trooper and came out of her surgery feeling spry and ready to board our plane.

But ,no, no, the flight ended up being delayed for 2 and a half hours, not leaving until 10:30 pm. Our children were amazing hanging out in the airport, totally exhausted, waiting for our departure. And Donna, just having surgery hours before, also amazed. We finally arrived home at 2 am in the morning.

One would think that rain and cold would detract people from coming to Disney. No. The park was so incredibly crowded from Sat through Tues with mobs of Mickey Lovers celebrating Valentine's Day and President's Day.

But that was just the unlucky stuff that happened...we had tons of WONDERFUL experiences too!

How about this for starters...our kids didn't miss ONE day of school. School was cancelled for 9 days! And after getting home so late (or early), they even had a two hour delay that morning followed by a delay the rest of the week. This totally benefited me and my late nights watching the Olympics.

The pool was so warm, we swam every day. Calvin, Ethan and Sommer had a blast each night hanging out at the pool with a bunch of friends they had met. Garth, Tate, Ashton, Bruce and I loved the hot tub even more. Our sore muscles loved soaking each night!

We didn't have to wait for any buses! Bus luck was on our side the entire trip. It seemed that every time we came out to catch a bus to a park, the bus would magically appear. And after long days of walking around the parks, our resort bus would be there, ready to give us a quick ride back to our hotel.

We avoided waiting in many a line thanks to Calvin's quick moves for the fast passes each morning. And then when those were out, we had Ashton to use for the extra parent waiting ticket. We rarely had to wait in any lines.

We never felt a hunger pain due to Disney's dining meal plan. I felt like it was a week of non-stop eating. My favorite indulgence was a chocolate chip mint shake every night. The warm cherry cobbler with huge scoop of vanilla ice-cream was a close second. We tried so hard to eat everything before we left...but we failed. We ended up giving 6 meals to a nice couple I met in line...while getting my daily shake of course!

It was too fabulous having Grandma and Grandpa Gair with us to help spoil the children. Thank you both for coming along with us on our Magical Vacation!

I taught the kids to always look down while walking around the park. I told them there would be a good chance they would find some money. Sure enough, our skills brought in 12 dollars. And don't worry, there was no pocket picking...at least not this trip.

More pictures to come...if I can get my act together!

Theres Snow Place Like Home

When the Blizzard of 2010 comes to our town, Ashton knows what to do...

just remain in your undies all day.

The rest of us, shoveled and shoveled and shoveled...

or at least Garth did.
I shoveled for an hour early on Saturday morning and was just plain wiped out.

There was so much snow (27 inches) that even the kids were too tired to play in it. Even the dog, Joey couldn't take it.

We have loved it!

I actually had time to read a book. It kept me up until 1:30 am last night! By the way, you need to read, "The Hunger Games."

It did cancel our trip for Saturday. And then cancelled it again on Monday.

Tuesday is our last try and then Disney will have to wait until winter is over.

It's supposed to snow again on Tuesday night. My bets are there will be no school all week long.

I was able to run in it today.

Nothing will stop that.

Nervous

I am nervous about this weekend. I mean, it has been five years since our last big family vacation. A vacation where we actually were gone longer than 3 days, we fly, we leave all of our cares at home. A vacation where the kids have been saving their coins (in a big jar...I will be cashing that in this week), working on earning "Disney dollars" by behaving and helping. A vacation we have been anticipating for years.

It will be here on Saturday.

But here is why I am nervous:

1. We are supposed to have a major snowstorm on Friday night (we leave early on Saturday morning)
2. We have had 2 sick kids and one sick dad the past few days and now I feel a bit achy and have started coughing. What about the other 3 kids?

Here is why I am okay with my nervousness:

Our travel agent encouraged us to get travel insurance.

And many of you might think that was a waste of money...but the last time we went to Disney we had three kids with fevers hitting 104 and coughing every night. Needless to say, it wasn't the best vacation.

I hope we will be leaving on that jet plane on Saturday...healthy and happy AND WARM!

Catch up.

Let's take a moment to catch up with the Porters:

1. Too much laundry. Too many dishes. Constant piles of paper stacked waiting to be sorted. Bikes and scooters are tripped on everytime I walk through the garage. Toothpaste remnants on sink. Toilets never flushed. Toilet aim is always off. Shoes are tripped on. Coats are dumped. Trash is always over flowing. Things are always missing. Mom is always to blame. Lights left on. And so forth.
2. Laughter abounds. Calvin, Dad and Mom Gin Rummy tournmants. Sunday cookie making. Mario Bros playing. Story reading. Back scratching. Story telling. Lullaby singing. Super tight hug giving. Testimony bearing. Friend making. Sibling kindness. Basketball playing. Piano practicing. And so forth
3. We have a 10 year old in the house. Ethan hit the double digits today. This is our year for friend birthday parties. But I do attempt to persuade them to NOT have a big crazy party. I do this by offering them $100 in cold hard cash. They can either take the wad, have a $100 party or split it up. Good news...Ethan took the money.
4. Calvin turns 12 in five days. He went from wanting the $100 cash to a birthday party back to taking the cash. I think after he saw Ethan's huge stack of brand new 100 $1 bills he was sold.
5. Ethan and I had a blast shopping with his $100. We went to Tyson's Corner mall. I think my kids have been to a mall only a few times in their life. He was in awe. And even after having a wad money burning a hole in his pocket, he didn't spend a penny. After a trip to Toys R Us and Costco, he finally decided on an ipod. And even though the ipod was $130, I just had to throw in the extra few dollars after his donation of $29 of his other birthday money to the people of Haiti.
6. Ashton still will not put his head in the water. Not only are we talking about a pool, but the bath as well. Is it time to just dunk the kid?! Anyone out there willing to try to teach him to swim? He usually has a big tantrum on the pool deck when the instructor has attempted to get his ears wet. I am at the age where all I want to do at the pool in the summer is to read a novel. But curse that blasted swim vest. It is a total give-away that my son can't swim.
7. Tate sleeps with fifty pillows and four hundred blankets each night. I can't even tell where he is most of the time.
8. After spending 5 days in the hospital for a blocked small intestine, Garth won't admit it was a lovely get-away and counts as such.
9. Sommer is learning French. This pleases her father who has been a delighted tutor (Garth LOVES the kid's homework...and seems very upset when he doesn't get an A on a project...I mean, when his child doesn't).
10. The Porter's are taking their first family vacation in five years! WE ARE SO EXCITED! Mickey...we're coming!

It's Sad

It's sad that I can't find time for this blog thing anymore. I used to have time to read all of your blogs too. I loved that.

But I am not going to give up though. Now that would be sad.

TTTTTT is TT

First, I must preface this race account with Calvin's awesome FIRST ever 5k race! The boy ran a rockin' race, coming in at 24:30 without even training one day. Man that boy has talent. I love it. And now I have us signed up (including the rest of the family), for another 5k in a few weeks.

TTTTTT is TT stands for: Thankful That The Thanksgiving TURKEY TROT is Totally Trotted!

I get myself so worked up about races. Why don't I just go out and enjoy the sights and sounds, people and pets, experience and excitement of racing?

Because...I like a CHALLENGE with plenty of pain (epidurals not included)...AND that is what all the other runs during the week are for!

So the latest and greatest idea of mine was to take a few months off from marathon training and dive right into 5k record breaking. That meant no more long 20 mile runs. What it did mean though was running my guts out on the track.

I have plenty of zippity do-DA mentors out there! I have brother Matt who is wicked fast indeed. I have friends here in Virginia who not only run super speedy marathons but blast it in a 5k. This time my friend Jen got on board and decided to be my personal "pacer" today.

My goal: Beat my fastest 5k time to date which was set exactly two years ago: 21:26. And while at it, go ahead and break the 21 minute barrier. That means I had to run a 6:45 minute mile. Ouch for me.

So at 8 am this morning, I attempted to break my personal record....

There are over 3,000 trotters lined up. Many friends have gathered together at the starting line ready to get hearts a racing.

The gun goes off. The first mile is downhill, so the plan was to hit it hard. Within 50 steps, my heart was a pumpin' overtime and my legs a screamin.' Jen places herself a few steps ahead of me and begins giving me a play by play attack plan. This girl isn't even huffing or puffing due to her amazing running skills (her PR is in the low 19 minute range)...and I try to not hold that against her.

You would think a measly 3.1 miles would be a walk in the park...especially compared to 3 and a half hours of running a marathon! But there is nothing like a full out sprint for 20 odd minutes...don't like it one bit. I definitely prefer a longer slower run...

So mile one passes. We hit a 6:35 pace. Perfect time, but I know it is way too fast for my skill level. The only good thing, is all of the children that weave all over the place have been left in our dust.

Mile two begins with a lovely uphill. Then another hill and maybe even another. Jen keeps telling me to pick it up a bit...what?! I think is she crazy! But after seeing our 2 mile split come in at 7:15, I start to worry. I am not going to be able to do this unless I can pick it up!

But then I think, one more lousy mile...7 more minutes...maybe less if I dig deep.

We turn the corner for the final .75 mile (uphill). Jen pulls the pace up and tells me to keep with her. I do! And then she says, "Heather, you will now pass me and start picking people off." I look at my watch, it says I am running 6:15's. I am dying. I can hear the announcer. I am getting closer. My legs are burning. My heart is about to explode. I pass a few boys. I see two speedy girls (go girls) that I just can't catch. I see the timer, it reads 20:50. Click, click...I give it a good push....I give it everything I have...

21:01.

2 seconds off my goal time.

I think, "Seriously? I couldn't run just 2 seconds faster?!" Nope. I couldn't have. Not this time.

What a great day of pain.

I wonder if I burned enough calories in 21:02 minutes to cover my Thanksgiving dinner? I doubt it.