My first Friday off work for a while so I am going to write a blog entry. Boys are off school too, in service day, but they are quietly watching cartoons, so here I sit in my bed with a cup of coffee and my iPad. This is nice :)

As many of you know, we have taken up snowboarding this winter. We signed the boys up for a package of 3 lessons and they loved it. After their initial lesson that I sat and watched from the cozy lodge with latte in hand, I decided to give it a try myself. Not something my body does comfortably!!!! After my first 2hr lesson I was more exhausted than when I ran the half marathon. My body fights leaning into the downhill and therefore I fell, and fell and fell!!! Would love to know how many push ups I did during that session. I know my arms were killing me all week long. But that didn't stop me going back for lesson 2. I still fell alot but thanks to a few tandem rides with instructor joe, I finally got to feel where my weight shift should be and gained increase control of my board. I still am absolutely terrible at it. Have to traverse, stop, sit and reposition before taking off again but at least it's a smidge easier. And I only hurt for 1 day post activity vs the 4 day pain from my first lesson. I have started practicing my stance on Braedens skateboard along my hallway. I will get this!!!!!!


Braeden has started basketball. Initially Scott was going to leave the coaching to someone else for a change, but after 2 weeks of practices, when we showed up to the first game Wednesday, things did not look good at all!!! In all the years of watching kid sports I have never seen seen them clear the board at half time because of such an unbalanced score. The other team had scored over 30 points against our 0!! And then in the second half they scored another 18 to our 2. The other team were not a bunch of phenomenal athletes either. Just regular kids. Our team just didn't even know the fundamentals. Was sad to see our kids just lost out there. And what a lost potential as our team is a great wee group of boys, and Braeden is becoming quite athletic naturally. He is fast. Can actually make baskets and dribble this year. So that was it, after much thought that night, Scott got in touch with the coaches and is now helping. Sounds like Braedens practice went much better. Braeden came home excited after last nights practice. But it means I've got a coach in the house again. Lots of researching, talks about plays and papers all over the house with plays drawn on them :) As Cade's not doing a team sport this season, taking a break between just coming off tackle football then basketball, and will do flag football in the spring, he is going to help dad with coaching.

I have joined a running class Monday nights. I'm very excited. It's the guy who coached field and track at the high school here for 16 years. Has done adult running coaching since the 80's. We will meet 630 Monday nights for a half hour of talking about nutrition, injury prevention, running plans etc then head out for a run at 7. Will be nice to run in a group. I've been running solo for a while now since my running buddy moved away 2 years ago.

So that's the low down on the goings on in Grants pass right now.
Spoke to Kelly via text last night and then received the email this morning with the news that she won't make it back to Scotland this year. I am so sad. So that's a fun combo in my house. Scott all hyper about coaching and me depressed. This October it will be 3 years since I have seen any of my siblings, nephew, sister in law and best friend. But they are on opposite sides of the world :( And unless I win the lottery I can't afford to go both places nor take that much time off :( So I am a grumpy madam right now as I can't fix this!!!!!

Right, I should go. Got to take the dogs for their yearly check ups this morning, then get my house cleaned for friends coming over to dinner. Chicken and roast potatoes on the menu, but now I realize its burns night, am going to add haggis to the meal.

Love to all.

Lucy xxxx

Happy New year. How is it 2013 already ?!?!?!?
After a nice Christmas Day, Boxing Day night I came down with the flu. Body aches, fevers highest recording at 104.5, and sore throat. That pretty much wiped me out until Sunday. Thankfully the boys had already planned to go to Grandmas Friday,leaving Scott to hang out with the sickie. He was working that weekend, then would come home and sauté up Xmas leftovers for us for dinner and we zoned in front of movies. Was quite nice really.

I had to work New Year eve day, then when we were done we headed to the coast to see the New Year in with Cade, Braeden, Karen and Bill. We returned home New Year's Day and had our traditional New Years dinner of Beef and ale stew, puff pastry, roasted potatoes, sweet potatoes and parsnips but had to follow it with egg nog pudding with raspberries and whipped cream as With being away, my traditional desserts of pavlova and creme brûlée couldn't be ready in time, but we had those on the 2nd :)


Back to work for a couple of days, then Friday off and I decided to take down the Xmas tree as Saturday morning the scouts were coming round to haul them away for a small fee.
Scott always does such a lovely job putting tons of lights on the tree but boy are those a bugger to get off! But that wasn't the worst of it. Neither was the fact that I got covered in sap as I was taking the lights off! Neither was discovering sap had gotten on my carpet! No the worst thing was discovering the hundreds of baby spiders which had obviously recently hatched and were nestled into my tree skirt. Ugh!!!!!! Needless to say that tree skirt went straight into the trash.

Saturday we had made plans to take the boys and a couple of friends up into the snow to sled and have airsoft gun wars. I awoke that morning with laryngitis!! Popped a few ibuprofen and off we went.
The boys had a blast. Sledding all morning, and of course not being content with the straight steep run, they found a side run complete with jump and trees close by for the extra thrill. I felt like the paramedics that standby at the X games :)





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We stopped for lunch and grilled hot dogs, and were flocked by birds. They were quite forthcoming and would swoop in to attempt to get something to eat. So the boys took to holding pieces out for the and I was able to capture one bird coming down to eat out of Quintins hand


Sunday we took off up to Mount Ashland to take the boys for a snow boarding lesson. It was a beautiful drive up to the mountain.











The boys loved snowboarding





After a few initial losses of control and falls Braeden proved to quite the natural!!





Cade who is a little more cautious in nature took to heart what the instructor told them about when they felt like they were picking up too much speed and couldn't regain control that they were to purposefully fall over. Look how snowy he is.
Cade wasn't too enthused about the chairlift, but did it and even managed to give a smile for the camera


Those were some hungry boys coming off the slopes!!! Cade was tired and passed out for the journey home, however wee Braeden was wide awake, invigorated and sparkly eyed after his adventure. Braeden has been out practicing on his skateboard since we go home, and both boys loved it so much sounds like we will be hitting the slopes next weekend. Think I'm going to join them and try snowboarding myself.

Hope everyone has had a lovely time over the festive season.

Love to all


Lucy xxxxx