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January, 2020:

Death Sucks!

I don’t like death

Ever

And when it affects us directly … @#$%

I can talk to the kids about it and am able to explain it in a way that hopefully helps

But this week we lost an uncle

I hadn’t seen him in a number of years

This past Thanksgiving I invited him

When he said he couldn’t come I tried again

And a third time …

Unfortunately that didn’t happen

And now he’s gone

Today was the funeral

Unfortunately one of the kids is sick so we couldn’t go to the wake

We did try though

This is day 4 of the being sick

He really tried to get ready to go

He was willing and took a shower but became dizzy and nauseous so we didn’t make it

 

Today I took the kids out of school to attend the funeral

There were a LOT of tears

I told them later that I don’t want sad sappy music at my funeral

How about some lizzo or billie eilish?

Death is exhausting

I wonder what goes through my dad’s head or anyone’s head when they get closer to death

If your older brother passes do you think to yourself, how much time do I have left?

Or maybe it’s best not to think that way

It’s not, I know that

We need to live each day like it’s the last

Because we simply never know when it will happen to us …

We ski!

We just wrapped up our 3rd major ski trip in as many years.

With them having zero previous skiing experience, that first year I was prepared to have driven nearly 7 hours just to swim in the resort pool.

Fortunately, and despite quite literally sub zero temperatures (-20+ no joke), they took lessons and thrived.

This year I would consider them more or less advanced beginners…mastering the greens but still skittish when it comes to blues.

I remember taking my first ski trip maybe in junior high with the local park district … failing to have much success using the pull rope to get up the hill but quickly finding my way and flying down any hill on skis.

Skis didn’t last long though, I’ve been snowboarding now for decades.

This trip she went mostly on her own with her friend. I would run into her here and there and take a lift together every so often.

I stayed with him most of the trip although he had a friend as well.

He moved to snowboarding on day two but he finds skiing much easier so boarding didn’t last long (maybe next time, hopefully)

She took one big spill, face-planting she said (I wasn’t witness).

We brought most of our food with, cooking tacos, soup, chicken, sandwiches and ramen for lunch, potatoes, pancakes and cereal for breakfast with snacks, hot chocolate, coffee and other things throughout the day.

This particular resort has a waffle stand. Yum. Sugar and chocolate covered belgium waffles … the kids had seconds and thirds.

Day 1 was warm and slushy. Day 2 they made snow and the slushy stuff froze. Day 3 it snowed about 4-5 inches. We night skied on Day 1 & 2. Unfortunately we weren’t early risers and never made it out for a first run.

I’m super proud of these kids. I created a couple skiers 🙂 I cannot wait for a trip west or up to Canada in the not-to-distant future.

 

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