That's Not Snow. Is That Snow? That's Snow!

What a week! The first part of the week was crazy and hectic for both Tait and I. I was preparing for our 9 week vacation, and Tait was preparing for his 10 day vacation. It's a lot of work trying to figure out everything that the kids and I need for the next 2 months. Tait was feeling a little overwhelmed at work, trying to get everything ready so he could relax for ten days without worrying about anything at the office. (We have been on vacation 5 days now and he still has not looked at his Blackberry!)
On Thursday, Tanner had his Kindergarten graduation. It was so cute! Out of 30 kids in his class only 2 awards were handed out and Tanner received one of them. The award was for exceptional behavior, and since I'm already bragging I'll go ahead and mention that he received straight A's and O's , (O=outstanding) on his report card. A's are hard to come by at his school because 94% is the cutoff for an A. Good job Tanner!


After his graduation we were off to California. I was a little concerned because the weather was supposed to rain, and everyone knows I hate to drive in the rain. Well on the way out of Queen Creek it started to hail, so I knew we would be in trouble. After we got out of the Phoenix area it was actually never rained until we were outside of Palm Springs. All of a sudden we saw some clouds that were the darkest clouds that I have ever seen, and we were headed right toward them. The next thing I know we see snow all over the Interstate 10 with 2 snow plows in front of us scraping the freeway! It was crazy. Finally after quite a bit of traffic we got to the base of the mountain where we paid $4.19 a gallon for gas, it was the most I have ever paid for gas. About 3/4 of the way up the mountain Hunter puked all over, so we had to pull over and clean him up. It was only 30 degrees, it was 7:30 at night, the fog was incredibly thick and Hunter was standing on the side of the road in nothing but a diaper while we tried to clean him and the car. What a nightmare. After a long and very eventful drive we made it to our cabin in Big Bear Lake.

Friday was a great day. My parents arrived up at the cabin first thing in the morning, and I 'm glad that they came up when they did because the rest of the day it snowed. It snowed all day long. It was beautiful, and the kids loved it. I just loved seeing the snow fall, it has been a long time since I have been in the snow. The kids went out and played every now and again and the rest of us stayed inside and played games, read, or worked on puzzles.

Saturday my brother and his family joined us. It didn't snow again but it was foggy and cold the whole day. Usually on Memorial Day the lake is filled with water skiers but this weekend the only boats that I saw was 2 tour boats that take tourists around the lake. The tourist boats sure gave us some entertainment this weekend. One of the tour boats is a pirate boat. The kids loved it when it came by the cabin. They were yelling at the passengers, "Arghh, Ahoy". Well right when they were leaving the captain shot a fake cannon off and the kids freaked out. They thought for sure that we were under attack. We have never seen Parker and Hunter so scared in all our lives. The adults sure got a good laugh. The next day the pirate boat came back and did the same thing, but this time the kids were prepared and weren't so scared.

The other tour boat decided to take it's passengers out during the foggiest time of the day. At times we couldn't see more than 25 yards away. Well the captain of the boat couldn't see where he was going and he ended up beaching the boat on a sand bar right in front of our cabin. It was a mess! Other boats came out from the harbor to help tow him off. Passengers were jumping off the tour boat onto smaller boats. Finally they were able to pull the boat out and it went on his way. What a sight!

On Sunday we went to church. It is always scary going to church in Big Bear. It is just really different than any Mormon church that I have been to. Tait jokes that the church isn't true in Big Bear. Did you know that there is such thing as a computerized organ? Who knew?
Today my parents, Bryan and his family went home. We had a great time playing games and visiting with them. We are going to have a great summer.