Snow Day

I woke up this morning and had a text from Bobby that was received at 3:38am: Just took a shower. going to sleep until Dan gets here, supposedly at 5.

Oi. The man works too hard, I tell you. I'd hardly seen him all week, and now I wasn't going to see him all day again. I'd committed to helping Keith & Tania move their stuff out of a room in my parents' house into a storage unit, and on top of that, said I'd watch my 3-year-old nephew Jonah for awhile. Bobby had committed to taking Emma and her sister Lily up to Big Bear for the day.

The doctor had told me on Tuesday that I was to do no lifting for 2 weeks. I wasn't sure how much help I could be to the cause as it was. Then Tania said it: If you don't want to help, don't worry about it. Up until that point I was sad that I wouldn't see Bobby all day again, but I was accepting it, but now the mutinous seed had been planted.

Shortly after, I decided to walk (the two whole houses down) to my brother's house and ask Patricia if they would be okay with me taking my nephew up to Big Bear. I had decided that if they were okay with that, I would flake out on the move (since I couldn't do a whole lot to help anyway) and go with Bobby and the girls. She said it was fine and bundled and packed him up.

Jonah and I helped with what we could until Bobby arrived a few hours later with the girls, and then we all packed up and started on our way. We met up with Brian and Caelyn before driving up the mountain, so we didn't actually make it up there until a little after noon.


Big Bear was apparently a popular destination today, because there were loads of people about. We found a little spot where the kids could make snowballs and dig around in the snow and hung out for a couple hours. All the kids seemed to have a good time. The snow was kind of hard though, so we decided to see if we could find a better spot.

On the way to this better spot we had in mind, we stopped somewhere with go carts and a louge. We took turns so all the kids could go on the go carts. Lily and Jonah were gung-ho, Emma was cautious as usual, and only decided to go at the last minute. They all loved it though.

After the go carts, Bobby wanted to take the kids on the louge, but Brian and I decided to sit out with the younger kids. Emma even agreed to go down alone. The line for the louge wound up taking over an hour, so by that time the sun was going down over the mountain and it was starting to get really chilly. We were there at the bottom, because they were all supposed to be coming down soon and I wanted to get a picture, but Jonah, who had not complained all day, started telling me he was too cold repeatedly. I literally walked inside and started texting Bobby to tell him where we were when he and the girls walked up to me.

Jonah is a relatively mild mannered kid, and even though Emma and Lily were bundles of energy, all the kids were really well behaved for the whole day. On the way to the car we dreamed of hot cocoa (why do I feel the need for hot cocoa when in the snow?), so when we stopped for gas at the bottom of the mountain, I bought a couple cocoas for the 5 of us to share.

On the way down, Lily asked if she could stay the night with us too. Emma really wanted her to come home with us too, and we said that when we got to her house, we could ask if it would be ok, since even if it was she'd still need to go home to pick up an overnight bag. She started saying how much she wanted to stay, and that she wanted to go everytime Emma was with us. She must have asked five or six times if we could call and ask if she could stay the night, and each time we said that we could ask when we got there.

When we got around to drop off Lily, Emma asked if Lily could stay overnight with her. Unfortunately, the answer was no, and both the girls started crying. Not loud, give-me-what-I-want crying, but the quiet tears you cry when you know there is nothing you can do to change the answer.

As we left, I called Tania. We had tentatively planned for she and Keith to come over to our house for dinner, and I wanted to see if they were still up for it (and if they remembered). She sounded not really sure (and clearly very tired from their busy day), and mentioned that they didn't know if the parentals were expecting them to be home for dinner. I checked with my mom, and she suggested that since we were still near their house, why not come over there for dinner. So we did. I called Aaron & Patricia and told them I'd have Jonah there when they came home. So we wound up having an impromtu steak dinner for 11.

As I sat there digesting my meal, feeling my eyes droop a little, watching Bobby's eyes do the same, my mind left the conversation and I asked if he was ready - he was. We packed Emma up and said goodbye to everyone. Bobby and Emma both passed out in the car on the way home, so not long after we arrived we were all snuggled in.