New Years Eve 2009 at Northstar

Happy New Year!!

They had a troupe of fire dancers come as part of the Village New Years Eve celebration. We decided they were a little creepy, but it was an interesting show.

As Ryan and I skiied our last run to our place we saw them setting up the fireworks equipment. They put on a great show and they burst right over our firepit! We played games and the kids pulled confetti poppers at midnight. I think it is the first year that everyone actually stayed up to see the ball drop!

Northstar at Tahoe: December 2009

Doesn't it look like they are having fun? Apparently they were miserable...

We made our annual trek to Northstar at Tahoe for the week after Christmas. As we were getting our snow gear on, we realized that the ski pants Ryan was supposed to have grown into wouldn't button and the new ones we bought Andy last week were mysteriously too small...so Dave took the girls up the mountain and I took the boys to the Village to get some new gear. We met them later and had a gorgeous ski day...along with about a billion other skiiers!

The three younger kids preferred to play in the snow and Ryan wore shorts whenever I didn't stop him. Dave and I decided that while we planned to ski three days, they only had to ski two. As I write this, I am thinking "had" to ski?!

Dave, Andy and I had a blast skiing nearly all blacks and loving the fresh coat of powder.

Oh yeah! That tiny ant doing a spread eagle is me.

They are actually great skiiers...just lacking a little confidence. It took me a little over an hour to get Ryan off the run when he fell. A little to ambitious, perhaps? I am just grateful that we had terrific weather and that no one got hurt.