Life back in Liberty Lake

Getting back to the swing of things after our trip to Asia wasn't as difficult as one would expect.  We changed gears a little with home schooling and went with our local districts homeschooling program, leaving K12 Virtual Academy at the end of January.  It was a needed break as school was becoming a bit of a drudgery, not a joy.  Even now, the end of February we're rethinking the direction of schooling and looking at different options.  More on that later.

When we got home the first of January we went pretty much straight up to Schweitzer to check out the newly remodeled ski condo.  It was 90% done with a few things that could be done this spring when the ski season was over.  I have to say I'm in love with the place.  When we first walked into the condo my words were, "No way.  WAAAAAY too much work for the cost of it."  Well funny how things work out isn't it. We ended up gutting the place, literally and redoing almost every surface, except the ceilings.  The ceilings were the one redeeming factor in the condo's original state.  Big beams, tongue and groove - absolutely gorgeous.  Our construction team was amazing at their ability to make the place feel warm and cozy yet with a few structural changes they made it seem more than big enough for the 13 people it will sleep. 

 Laminate flooring is my new favorite floor!  Due to some excessive dog pee on our hardwood floors at home, we had to refinish our floors and be out of the house for a week at the beginning of February.  Expensive and smelly - so not fun.  But these laminate, wide plank floors - they're amazing.  They look great, soft on the feet and they don't scratch nor absorb water. :) 

The dining room table I found at a flea market/barn expo in Sandpoint this summer and I was taken at first sight.  Kind of funky, it gives the space a unique feel adding texture where normally there's none.  One of the things I love about the condo is all the different textures.  There's board and batt on the walls, real stone and a chunky, wood mantle on the fireplace, sliding barn doors, a black kitchen, plaid wall-paper, all topped off by the  amazing wood ceilings.  If you're redecorating and thinking, "How can I save my house from being builder-boring?"  ADD TEXTURE!  I love using 3 or 4 coordinating textures, from wood, metal, stone. fabric etc to come together and just make you want to stay and sit all day!

 It took us a couple of weeks to hang our pictures, sleds and various random decorator items, but I think we've pretty much wrapped up the decorating, save a couple of spots.  It's so nice to go up and literally just sit back and relax.  Of course there are some projects that need to be done once the snow is gone, like paint the living room and turn the 300 sq foot space above our new garages into a studio that sleeps 4.  It won't be as nice as the main space, but I'm thinking Balin and I have some creativity we can use on that space.  Pictures will be coming.

One of the main reasons I wanted to homeschool the kids this year was so we could go up to the mountain and play.  Funny how the best laid plans don't always work the way you think they should.  The snow this year has been less than stellar - in fact it's been really poor.  There have been a few amazing days that make you say, "wow!" as far as the skiing goes, but the best part of the past 6 months has been in the family time we've created by homeschooling.  Most weeks over the past two months have been had up at the condo.  The kids do surprisingly well there and our routine is pretty enjoyable.  Depending on the snow we either go skiing first thing and then do school work after lunch, or we do our school work and then go out after lunch.  The condo is a 5 minute walk from skiing trails and if the snow is good the kids can ski straight from the slopes to our front door, so it's pretty easy to get outside.  We spent one day sledding on the hill next to the garage, which was fun and the dogs LOVED it. 

Come the weekends though the mountain, and particularly our condo, sees a little more action.  Two of Balin's co-workers have places in the same building as we do (one of the reasons we bought here) and Perrin has become best friends with Alex Nupert, whose dad works for Crux also.  As soon as Friday comes the two of them are inseparable, no joke.  Friday night also brings Balin and most weekends the Wimberley's, our neighbors from Liberty Lake.  We offered them our upstairs, which has 3 bunks and a queen bed and bath for the season.  They have a 3 & 6 year old and a dog Lani who come up to play in the snow as well.  We are hoping that next season we'll be finished with the space above the garage and they can rent that space from us for the season. 

The social life at the mountain is really unbelievable.  Most people we know down at the lake have a house/condo up at the mountain.  It's a little strange I have to admit.  It's funny because the first couple of weekends we were up at the mountain I kept inviting everyone over to hang out. I soon realized it is far better to meet everyone up at the village for a drink or two.  The first weekend we had 15 kids swinging from the rafters and 8 adults in the dining/living room.  It was fun, but wow, that's a lot of people, especially little people.  We haven't done that since. :)  Schweitzer has some great restaurants and bars and has done a great job of creating a ski town vibe on the mountain.  Balin and I left the kids at the condo one Saturday night and walked to the village.  It was snowing heavily as we met with 10 of our friends at the local bar.  While we were there, we got a text of another work friend of Balin's who was at another restaurant, so we excused ourselves and made our way to the next social engagement.  It felt like we were on vacation in that short time span of 3 hours.  So fun.

Schweitzer also has a chapel that I've been trying to go to regularly on Saturdays.  They meet at 3:30, which is just perfect.  The pastor is a young man from CDA and his wife.  It's been such a blessing to hang out with them after service and get to know them a little better also.  He is an incredibly gifted singer/guitarist as well as communicator/educator.  Truly impressive for one who is only 23.  We're hoping we get to spend more time with them as we always walk away encouraged and challenged in our faith.

My favorite thing to do, sit in the chair and drink tea while being wrapped in a blanket.  Looks like it's Perrin's favorite spot too.

Sage received a new ski outfit from her faithful friend Faith.  The new outfit spurred a renewed interest in American Girl dolls.  Sage now gets dressed for every event and unfortunately had a very bad ski accident that left her leg in a cast.  Perrin even had to purchase a wheelchair for her as Sage mentioned it was painful to use crutches. 

 Perrin's and Sam's skiing ability have improved dramatically, which is what we were hoping for.  Perrin was happy on the bunny hill the first couple of days of the season.  Last time we went skiing she was zooming down the blacks.  Amazing. 

 I decided to love on my husband, who loves curly hair, and get a perm.  Oh the things we do for love.  It's curly alright - like afro girl curly.  But it is cute even if it does take me forever to curl it and get it to look natural.  And then if I go outside in the moisture - POOF - all that work goes to frizz.  I love my husband.

 Our friends from Arizona came for the weekend last week.  Sandra and Nicolas braved the frigid north, which turned out not to be so frigid, and we showed them the best of the Northwest.  We took them on mountain biking, hiking, out to eat, played laser tag downtown.  I think they went home with a great appreciation of "if it's not raining, we go outside".

 Crazy amount of lady bugs on the waterfall hike.  Dormant, they cluster together when it's cold out.  When it warms up, they'll fly away en masse looking for yummy aphids to eat.

There is nothing like adversity to spur you on to learn new things and lately I've been learning a lot.  Balin has been focused on work lately and with the kids being home, not a lot of snow and just school work to be done, it's been challenging.  A couple of times I've lost it and have either gone sad mommy or mad mommy.  Either one has not been helpful.  I decided to change that as it's not the way I want to live.  I pulled out a book I got on parenting called Love & Respect in the Family.  It talks about how children need to hear and know that they are loved, while parents need to feel and know they are respected.  Often when the kids aren't feeling loved they act disrespectful and when the parents don't feel respectful, they act unloving.  It's called the family crazy cycle.  I talked to the kids about this as the crazy cycle had been on high lately - especially between the children.  We decided that when the children started to fight, they would get a time out immediately, not in a negative way, but more to allow them time to get off the crazy cycle and think about what is going on in the situation.  When 5 minutes had passed we would reconvene and talk with respect and kindness to one another about what was going on.  I insist on using "I" language.  No "when you do this...", rather "when this happens I feel....".  I learned these skills during my training for teen intervention at the UofW, but haven't been diligent in putting them into practice until lately.  And I have to say, this week has been peaceful and beautiful.  The kids have done a great job at staying off the crazy cycle and we've only had to have one time out - which in itself diffused the situation.  There is hope.  I'm not going to go crazy and my children will be ok.