Tuesday, January 01, 2013

Tubing at Snoqualmie

When we were in Minneapolis, we learned that winter sports are taken very seriously by Minnesotans. Sledding, for example, was no sport for the weak-hearted. Only teenagers and other people who don't have a good grip on their mortality ever went out to the professional sledding slopes (e.g. where you can rent innertubes and fly down steep hills of hard-packed snow without regard for other people or wild animals that may get in your way, then ride a lift back up and do it again).

In Seattle, it's a whole different scene. Here, if you have a death wish you can find a black ski run just about anywhere, and use a snowboard if you really want to seal the deal. Hundreds or maybe even thousands of people do this every day all winter long so they have a pretty orderly way of doing it (although on a more serious note, and I will never get used to this, at least one person does die every year - usually not going down the black run but driving there or getting lost on their way back up the run).

Sledding is like the toddler version of a black ski run, and it's mostly toddlers who sled, so you can imagine that in Seattle sledding is a mellow event with groomed runs, people waiting politely for each other to go down and lots of hot chocolate afterwards. Today we experienced just that. Layla had a blast. We were quite pleased with both the runs and the hot chocolate. And since all kids are adorable in a snowsuit we almost died from all the cute, but other than that we stayed pretty safe.


The One Sandal

When I was little, a family friend Diane came to stay and left a pair of shoes behind on accident. She got in touch with us apologizing for the inconvenience and hoping we could bring her shoes back the next time we saw her.

It turned out, this simple task became a 10-yr long pursuit of a pair of very elusive shoes. Every year or so, we would find one of them. We would put it someplace 'safe' until we could find the other. When the other turned up, nobody could remember where the mate was put. It went on like this until we finally moved out of the place. Naturally, even then we could only find one of the shoes.

This summer, we had a similar experience with Layla's sandal. She is starting to be a bit finicky about which shoes she'll wear, so when she got attached to this one particular pair we were devastated when one got lost. We looked and looked, and finally gave up and hid the mate as it was turning the house into chaos every time Layla saw it and got upset over not being able to wear the pair of them. When we finally found the missing sandal, we couldn't find the one we had hidden. Remembering my traumatic past experience with this sent me into a panic. Luckily I found a similar pair at a used store and bought them with a sigh of relief. Immediately, we lost the mate to that one too. I believe it is just these sandals that are cursed, as we have been quite good at keeping track of her other favorite shoes. This week, as I was packing up Layla's old shoes to go to Goodwill, I found one of each of the two pairs of sandals and finally had to throw them both away.

Time to take a break

 What do you do to relax? These past two years I feel like I have forgotten how to relax. It reminds me a little of grad school and how afte...