Sunny Days and Sad Ones, Too

We have been having a stretch of beautiful weather. It’s crisp and a little chilly still, but the sunshine has cheered us all up a ton. It was just gorgeous for our 25 Club’s Cross Country Skiing this month. We went up to Cypress yesterday (yes, I realize it was only the 24th of the month, but in order to fit something like skiing in we had to bend the rules a smidge) and the weather was perfect. My triceps are a little sore today, but otherwise it was just a nice exercise in the fresh air. The downhill stretches are crazy freaky on x-country skis – you feel WAY out of control. It was a little weird for the three of us, who have been downhill skiing for years, to be screaming as we hurtled down hills that would have seemed tiny and insignificant if we were on our regular skis. We all dressed in layers, and were down to just a base layer almost immediately after the first hill. After the sun went down, it cooled off quite quickly and we stopped at the cabin halfway through the trails for a bowl of soup. Unfortunately I couldn’t handle much more skiing as my throat was pretty bad, so we called it a night soon afterwards.
Mike and I have both caught The Cold from the boys. Jack is still coughing a bit, but Ethan only had it very slightly. It doesn’t look like this is a bad one (famous last words?) if we use the boys as an indicator, but the two of us feel pretty sub-par today. We had one of those little unspoken wars this morning in bed (Mike may have just been sleeping innocently, but I know I was battling) as to who would get up first. I stretched it to 7:30 then rolled out of bed with a sigh. A split second later, Mike was up too so I think I lost the war. I’m not really sure – I’ll tell you after I finish my Honey Latte from Starbuck’s. They made it especially for me (do I really look that bad today?) even though it’s not supposed to be released until tomorrow. I can tell you it’s pretty tasty and the honey has soothed my throat a lot.
Jack and Ethan have been embracing the outdoors with the good weather we’ve been having. Jack is hooked on biking and Ethan is SO into hockey. Ethan loves playing goal (he thinks he’s Luongo) and had Mike out there for 2 hours yesterday shooting pucks. He’s actually getting pretty good, and would be even better if we weren’t using our garage door for the net, which is so huge in comparison to a real hockey net. Jack’s almost ready to try his bike without training wheels, which hopefully will spur Ethan into taking off his own. Stubborn little mule...
We had a very successful Spirit of Celebration event for the Credit Union on Thursday. All my videos were well received (I think). It was hard to tell since I was up in the tech booth with Lesley on headset to catch all the lighting, audio and video cues. But the 300 or so employees in the audience seemed to clap in the right places and laugh in others so I think it was all good, and the live feed to Calgary worked as well. It’s exhausting and exhilarating all at once to be involved in calling the show like that! It was a big relief that everything went smoothly, and we finished on time too!
The only negative from this week happened at kindergarten. Ethan refused to kiss me goodbye! I was shocked and the other moms had to comfort me. As Carla was giving me a hug, Michelle said, “Ethan’s behind you” and I turned around, thinking he had changed his mind. He said, “I’m not here for THAT, Mummy, did you remember my granola bar?” It figures: he just wanted food. I had a couple of tears, I’ll admit it – I didn’t think it would happen so soon. SIGH.
I’m going to go huddle under a blanket with a hot lemon drink and try to make it through the day. I can hear the kettle whistling now... :)