Happy Father's Day!

 

We love you!

Norah finishes Kindergarten

 Norah finished kindergarten last week (5/19/2022), but unfortunately had to miss the final day due to Jackson's Covid quarantine.  So we didn't get any end-of-school pictures, but here are some other recent Norah pictures.

Norah lost her fourth tooth, this one on the bottom.  She may have started losing them a bit late, but she's making up for lost time!  She pulled this one out herself, which is remarkable only in the context of knowing how reluctant she had been to have anyone pull the first three...

The extra down time during the quarantine gave Will a chance to make some progress tying-up loose ends on Ella.  One of those was the first post-rebuild oil change.  It takes about 10-11 quarts to refill, and Norah wanted to empty every bottle!

Easter camping

 We went camping again to Mineral Wells State Park on Easter weekend. We got an upgrade to a campsite with water! Our camp site was Post Oak site 5. It is along the blue lakefront hiking trail.

We were better prepared this time and was able to go without our rooftop carrier. It was again filled with hiking, exploring, biking, most of all S'mores!

Our waterfront lodging

Bike upon an armadillo

Rock climbers 

Water was very cold!

Giant mushrooms!

 Several gigantic clusters of mushrooms appeared in our side yard this week, and Norah took the opportunity to practice her photography skills.

Norah loses her first tooth

 On the fifth day of April in the year 2022, Norah lost her first tooth!  She's had a wiggly tooth for seemingly forever, but one finally came out.  A raw carrot during her school lunch did the trick.  She has three more queued up!

2022 Spring Break Big Bend

Wednesday afternoon before the trip, I got a call from school nurse during a meeting. Nurse said Jackson had a sprained ankle and we needed to pick him up. When he still hopped around on Friday, I whispered to Will - how are we going to do our Big Bend trip with him? 

Our family's first trip to Big Bend was planned around hiking. Will did research for both the state park and national park, picked out a few trails for each day. I was not able to get anything inside the national park back in December and reserved primitive campsites in the state park instead. Our first three nights were reserved at Presidio to give us an opportunity to explore beyond the interior of the state park.

We decided to follow our original plan and leave on Saturday morning. It's about a 9 hours drive to Presidio so we took our time to get ready for the road. At 9am, we were all strapped in and ready to go. Will turned the key and the car won't start. He just moved the car out of the garage one hour ago. All of us were flabbergasted on the timing of our jeep battery's end of life. Two and a half hours later, with a new battery, we finally hit the road. 

By this trip, our kids are long road trip champs. We packed our lunch and loaded our iPad. We made as few stops as possible and reached our rental house around 9pm. We passed the Marfa lights viewing area in the dark but didn't see anything. :-)   

Sunday started the daylight saving time. Presidio has a different time zone than it's Mexican neighbor city Ojinaga. Our phones picked up different time depending on which area we were in the house. We started our day in a time confusion. 

Our house was a cute 102 years old adobe house walking distance from the border. It is charming and spacious. We loved it as our base for the three nights we stayed. We were also located on the downtown street. Given the size of Presidio, every house in view seemed to be downtown. Ojinaga is a much bigger town. When we drove in last night, we saw lights extended far beyond. Most of those lights were from Ojinaga. When I went to Bean Café to get our sandwich for our afternoon hikes, I chatted with the server. She said the locals go to the Mexican side for grocery and restaurants as it is much cheaper there. Border crossing during the week takes about 10-15 minutes. Later I read that Anthony Bourdain came to Presidio for Parts Unknown. And the mayor took him to Ojinaga for authentic Mexican food.  

Will picked two state park hikes for us on Sunday. Hoodoo trail and Closed Canyon trail. The first trail was all under the afternoon sun. Norah started to complain about a headache. We tried hard to convince a limping Jackson and a headache Norah to come to the second hike. And we all loved Closed Canyon so much! I walked in and was brought back to Petra. I told Will that and he agreed. The narrow canyon carved out by water exposed layers of red color. I wouldn't be surprised if there is some grand carving showing up at the end. Kids loved this hike so much too, they begged to come back. And we did.

Monday is Will's birthday. We drove to Big Bend National Park to hike Chisos mountain. It's a long drive from Presidio to BBNP, about 2 hours to the park entrance. When we approached the park entrance, our car slowed down in a long line. It's the line waiting to get inside the park. Park ranger said today was one of the busiest days in the park. He registered about 100 cars per hour.  When we turned to Chisos basin, the line for cars to come in didn't move. They have run out of parking spots.

We decided to abandon our original plan of hiking lost mine trail or window trail. We chose Pine Canyon trail since it requires 4 wheel drive and would screen out the majority of people. It's a 5 mile round trip trial. The first two miles were under the scorching sun, the final shading part was steep and slippery. Jackson's ankle didn't allow him to hike the final part so he missed the big drop off at the end. On our way back, we drove in the basin and looked at the window view. 

We got home very late and still had a small celebration for Daddy. I made a cake the night before so we could have our candle blowing and chocolate cake eating fun in a place far away from home. 

Tuesday we took a long time to pack up and check out. We drove to Closed Canyon at 10am to hike there once more and have our picnic lunch. After that, it's time to venture into the interior of the state park. When I reserved our campsite La Mota 1, I noticed its close distance from the main ranger station. Little did I know, it's jeep road between the station and our campsite. And it's unpaved road from highway to the ranger station. The drive off the highway to our campsite took 1.5 hours! We didn't plan to be out of the state park once we drove in. 

Our campsite was legit in the middle of nowhere. The closest campsite to us is 25 minutes drive away. We had two picnic tables and a cover for our use. In the afternoon, we set up camp and took a short survey of the land nearby. We were close to the edge of the park.

Wednesday we hiked Ojito Adentro Trail and Cinco Tinajas Trail. Ojito Adentro is a spring in the desert. Hiking from the dry, barren land to the oasis was such a mind blowing experience. When we stood at the end of the trail looking at the spring water dripping off the green moss, we were moved by the beauty and humbled by nature. We even saw a little toad/frog! 

Cinco Tinajas again reminded me of Petra. It is translated loosely to five water holes. Those pools have water year round. Water brought the gravels and through friction carved out the round pools in the canyon. It was a great climbing experience for Jackson and Norah. Norah asked to come back and we did.

Thursday we hiked the trail near our campground - Leyva trail. It is a loop train of 3.5 miles with an access trail to Cinco Tinajas. We walked past the Petroglyph area. On the way back, Norah and I walked ahead and took a wrong turn. After a mile or so, I realized we were on the same trail this morning. We backtracked and got back on the right path. Will freaked out since I didn't even bring my water with me. It was an exciting ending to our hiking day. It was a windy day so we spent the rest of the afternoon reading and playing games inside the tent. It was also a full moon day and the moon was so bright! 

Friday we woke up at 6:30 and packed up at 8am. Eleven and a half hours later, we were home! This trip was challenging, requiring stamina and determination. It brought our family much closer. We enjoyed our Big Bend camping trip! 

2022 Ski Copper

Feb 10 - Feb 14, 2022

Will, Norah and I loaded the car and left home Thursday at 2pm to pick up Jackson at school. Norah had early release but Jackson's valentine party lasted till 2:40. We were the fourth car in line and waited eagerly for Jackson to join us on this first family air plane ride since May 2019! (We flew to LA visiting Jacek and Celia)

Our flight was at 4:38pm and we were cutting it too close after Jackson finally joined us at 2:50 and we picked up Chick-fil-a. We decided to park at the airport which we haven't done before. Our car circled the fourth loop and there were no openings. Panic started to set in since it's only one hour till our departure time. Then we saw the airport valet. Crisis averted...

The flight time is only one hour and half. But after taking the rental car bus, picking the rental car and driving two hours to Copper, both kids were exhausted. We arrived our condo around 10pm Dallas time. Two kids went directly to sleep while we loaded our luggage to our fourth floor condo. At 2am, we all got woken up by Norah's cry. She had stomach cramp possibly caused by altitude sickness. 

Norah woke up the next morning with a good spirit. We drove to the rental shop to get kids' skis. After we redeem our free Copper ticket from our Monarch pass, we hit the slope at 9:57am! Will planned to pick up his new boots from Sure Foot at 12:30. Three of us skied in the afternoon and after we ended up near Woodward chair, Norah refused to ski again. We decided to walk back to the condo to meet Daddy. But the path took us across the creek with our lodge. Two kids crossed on the frozen creek with feet of snow covering. 

We thoroughly enjoyed our ski-in ski-out lodging on this trip. We made multiple stops at the condo during the day - hot lunch, bathroom break, take a rest or whatever. It even has a pair of Norah sized ice skates. Norah and I took a walk in the afternoon and found a ice pond for skating. She watched two boys playing hockey for a long while. I convinced her to go get the skates. We were joined by Jackson and Daddy after their ski day was over.

Saturday we hit the slope at 8:45am. Copper is a busy mountain, more than our regular mountain Wolf Creek and Monarch. We divided in two groups. I skied with Norah and watched mogul ski races in the morning. In the afternoon, Will skied with Norah. And I took Norah to the ice skating pond after she ran out of energy in the afternoon. We played hockey for hours on that pond. 

Sunday we started to find our family ski rhythm. Jackson and I explored the back bowl in the morning. Norah and I took a short nap to recharge. And we joined at the terrain park in the afternoon. How the two kids loved the jumps! Our day ended on waiting for a broken lift. We had to hike uphill a short ways. How glad were we that we were not on the lift! We enjoyed super bowl after a fun day of skiing. 

Monday we woke up at 5:30am to catch a 10:43am flight. We managed to check out at 6:20. With the morning traffic and long security line, we only made 20 minutes ahead of the boarding time. We made to home close to 3pm Dallas time. Estimated door to door time from home to Copper rental home is about 8 hours. For a 4 day trip, it's a large portion of travel time. Maybe Park City next time? ;-)

Rental (Lodge at Copper unit 404) is from Airbnb hosted by:

https://bighornrentals.com/