The Ski Days of March

There is a ski resort in the Sierra Nevadas in California named Bear Valley. Apparently, it was named after the amount of bears in the area, but I've never seen any, so it could have been named after someone named bear, like Bear Grylls or Scott Bear or something like that. But that's beside the point. The main point is, there is a ski resort near us called Bear Valley.

Every year in March, Bear Valley has a great deal on lift tickets. The days on which you can get the deal are called "Tremendous Tuesdays", and you can get a lift ticket for $12, which is a phenomenal discount on the normal price of $62. So, this year, as with other years, I planned two days in March which conveniently landed on Tuesdays to take advantage of this great deal.

The below pictures come from four different cameras on two different days (most of the pictures were from the second day). But still, even with the amount of photography, it so happened that two people were not photographed on the second day.

Here are four of the five people who caravaned with us up to Bear (to make the trip as budget-friendly as possible). From left to right are Paige, Kevin, me, and Katelyn. (First day)

Here is the back row of people from the second day. L to R (Katelyn, Hannah, Paige).

We are protecting the identity of this unknown person...

Up at the lodge on the second day. Corey prepares to conquer the slopes.

Corey's not the only one...

The main group (minus Justin and Cameron). Clockwise: Corey, me, Amy, Kevin, Paige, Katelyn, Kelsey, Hannah.

This main group is subdivided into three smaller groups, namely: the girls...

The guys...

And Kevamy (or Amevin?)

Oh yes, the two we left behind. This is Justin.

And Cameron.

The "adventure" I alluded to in the last post can now be related. Well, we had less people the first day, so mentally subtract Justin, Cameron, Corey, and Amy from the group above. The only missing person is Mr. Bolles (Justin, Cameron, and Kelsey's dad), but I have no pictures of him for some reason (only a video, which on our internet connection, would take days to upload).

So, on the first day, we were all skiing along, and Mr. Bolles had ended up separated from us for some reason. When we met back up, he told us that he had fallen and hurt his chest. Well, it so turned out that he had more than hurt his chest, he had broken two ribs! Poor guy, I felt so sorry for him. He managed to snowboard down the mountain to the first aid station with those two broken ribs, which was pretty impressive, but the Bolles had to cut their day short that day and Mr. Bolles was not able to snowboard the next week. Thankfully, on the second day we had no large injuries like the first day.

The only pictures of skiing come from the first day. Here is Hannah snowboarding, even though she is a skiier normally. A couple people did a little "switcheroo" for a couple runs.

Here is Kevin skiing and Katelyn snowboarding (even though she is normally a skiier).

Katelyn again.

On the second day, the weather forecast was "sunny and clear". However, when we got to the lodge, it was very cloudy and it ended up snowing hard all day. It was about as far off as the weatherman could have gotten, but we loved the new snow!

Kevamy looking at something on Kevin's phone the second day at lunch time.

Justin and I eating lunch (or more accurately, not eating lunch, but sitting there).

Here is Kelsey sitting at the table at lunch.

Here is Katelyn sitting at the table at lunch.

Here are Hannah and Amy sitting at the table at lunch.

Corey! Don't you know you're not supposed to play with your food?

Here are the moms (plus a little one). From left to right: Mrs. Chamberlain (Hannah's mom), my Mom, Emma and Mrs. Bolles.

Here is Emma being cute and doing something with the ice chest. Stealing, maybe? We'll never know...

And here is a random mountain nearby with a small amount of snow. Bear Valley has more snow than this (first day).

So there you have it! It was immense fun, and we'll do it again next year!

Casey

Final Orchard Report

The orchards are no longer in bloom. The bees have left the orchards for other flowers, and the blossoms have quickly morphed into little almonds. The change from no leaves, to blossoms, to leaves, to almonds is extremely quick - about 5 weeks.

A quick look back - this picture is from "Of Bees and Trees" - January 29. This was about 2 weeks before the trees began to bloom.

This picture is from "Marchward Ho!" - March 4. About that time was the peak blossom period.

Fast-forward to today. All the leaves are in...the blossoms won't be back until next year.

It astounds us every year how quickly the almonds grow in. These were flowers just a couple weeks ago!

The ivy at the front door is awfully impressive...and it looks cool, too!

Remember when I said that the bees had left the orchards for other flowers? Well, they all came to our fruitless mulberry trees, which are blooming right now. They don't really have flowers, but these annoying things that we descriptively call "worms" that are terrible for allergies and stick to the bottom of your feet once they fall. When crushed after they fall, they create a carpet of sloppy worms that make a mess of everything. They are rather annoying...but they look nice in a picture!

Quickly back in time again...where there were flowers here ("Marchward Ho!") a few weeks ago...

...there are purple leaves and wild plums now. The flowers are a direct gauge of how many plums there will be on the tree come harvest time.

The grass is also getting greener, although it's hard to tell in this picture.

The only flowers left...all the rest are gone.

In the back yard, this tree we planted about 3 years ago has grown quite large.

Recently, we built a fence around our garden. Even more recently, we planted our garden. Even more even more recently, some plants started to sprout.

Our very annoying dogs...they look guilty, or something. They should!

A bean plant that is small now but will grow to be a big bean that overtakes the box.

Apparently, these tomatoes are edible! What a deal!

  And here is the garden with the new fence around it.

I hope y'all enjoyed that quick post! We are going skiing in a couple days (and went skiing last week, too), so once I get some skiing pictures, I will post on our skiing adventures. Hopefully, we won't have as many "adventures" this second time as we did the first time...

I love leaving people hanging...but you don't get to know anything about the ski trips until I say! *cue evil laugh*

For now!

Casey

Marchward Ho!

As promised, this post will contain blooming orchard pictures. However, I will start this post with a few pictures from Hope's birthday, which was the 28th (she officially turned 2 1/4 this year, even though she's 9 years old; her birthday is on Leap Day)

Coffee cake has no coffee in it, go figure. Actually, this coffee cake has blueberries and pecans in it. Yum!

For Hope's birthday, the boys (Corey, Caleb, and I) gave her all the necessary tools to make muffins, including the mix. She had fun making them and serving them to us...and we didn't mind getting served, either!

For her birthday, we took Hope to Donnelly Park in Turlock. After Hope and Caleb played on the playground, we fed the ducks (and the geese, and the seagulls who I am convinced live there...not to mention the mud-hens or whatever they were that waddled around with massive feet)

"Mine! Mine! Mine! Mine! Mine!"

I am about to be attacked by the evil mutant goose with the raspy voice...I'm not joking, that thing was after me!

"Evil mutant goose? Where!?"

There he is! Just look at the pure evil intent in his eyes...and notice Hope's hesitation to stand next to him.

Here is the first glimpse at the orchards with our yearly stroll down the orchard row. I believe there are older pictures along the same theme on this blog...I just can't remember where.

Caleb's solo picture.

Hope's...

 Mine...

Corey's...

and, Mom's!

All the kids!

Mom's flower picture from Sunday.

Before the next picture, a little introduction needs to take place.

On the side of our property, there is a little tree. For years we had no idea what kind of tree it was. The only two things we did know about this tree were:

1) It was a citrus tree that had painful pointy thorns on its branches
2) It never produced any fruit

These are two great reasons to get rid of a tree, and when you add the fact that it was all alone on the side and nobody saw it anyway, you have three great reasons.

And so, we decided to chop it down. This was several years back. However, this tree was a major nuisance and refused to die! It was a very uncooperative tree. And so, it grew back. We let it alone and didn't bother with it anymore.

Well, this year, we went to the side, and lo and behold! there was fruit on the tree! Now we know what kind of tree it is. It is a grapefruit tree that produces the biggest, ugliest, grapefruit you've ever seen!

On the right is a normal grapefruit...on the left is the mutant grapefruit.

It was perfectly juicy inside, but just imagine trying to peel it!

Today (March 4) was a perfect day to take orchard pictures: sunny and beautiful. I believe this is the same row of orchard as the picture a took a few weeks ago.

 I love the blossoms...they are so photogenic!

Can you say "Allergy season"?

I love the hint of pink on the inside of the blossoms...almond blossoms are so pretty.

More of the same.

This one is one of my favorites.

 I also like this one as well. This is a wild plum tree.

I tried to get the sunlight coming through the blossom in this picture.

Buds and flowers on the same branch.

Pretty flower.

This is a plum tree.

Can you spot the bee?

I like how this picture turned out as well.

Here is a view of the almond orchard from our garage roof.

There you have it!

Casey