Keeping things interesting.

So we've been busy! The last day of ski school was on March 6th, and Sam and I just hung out in the bunny hill area at Purgatory for the afternoon. Lucky for us, we ran into some friends and Sam had a blast playing in the snow. Also, lucky for us, we have so much snow that we will be skiing until the beginning of May! Yay for ski passes! We're definitely getting our money's worth this year.

Sam has found his shadow. I caught him in the act in the late afternoon sun and of course I think he's the cutest thing ever...

We headed to beautiful St. George, Utah for spring break. It was not warm, but it was snowing at home, so we felt great about things. I'd love to share the pictures from the boys, Ryan and Ry's dad in Las Vegas at the BYU game and cruising the strip (in a car, safer that way), but after finally just getting his point and shoot camera back from his friend in Idaho, Ryan left it again in his dad's truck. (I just sighed.) We did a lot of swimming, reading, Wii-ing. We did a little biking and riding in the Rhino with Grandpa. We even had a fun afternoon visiting some great friends from dental school (love you Twiss family!).

This is the most beautiful thing about St. George. I love to see the temple. Surrounded by the red rocks and the snow covered mountains beyond that, it's just gorgeous.

Home from our spring break, back to school for a day or two, and then my sister Lisa and her kids arrived from Arizona. I have a friend who hooked me up with four passes to Purgatory for the week so that the McDowells could snowboard at will. I took my kids out of school for a day and it was a blast. A bit slushy by about 3, but still perfect.

In between the gaming, skiing/snowboarding, school, piano, etc., Clay and Taylor finally started working on their pinewood derby cars. Ryan usually enjoys building these and commits about a month of evenings to it (I might be exaggerating slightly), but these didn't have the same effort put in and sadly we had the worst Mickelson showing to date. Taylor got to participate, but isn't a scout yet. He displayed Tayloresque sportsmanship (not good) and was just psyched about his medal and winning several of his heats. Clay came in fourth place and got a trophy that he promptly tried to throw away. It was the same trophy that everyone took home last year, even down to the plate on the front with "2009" on it. The real highlight for all of us was Clay receiving his Arrow of Light. I'm so, so proud of him.

Taylor and Sam are wrestling this year. Sam isn't wrestling in tournaments this year while he gets used to the idea of wrestling. He enjoys the warm up at practice, but the actual wrestling after that doesn't interest him in the least. Taylor is loving it and really loved his win and his fourth place medal. The wrestling tournament was on Ryan's birthday and following the meet, Ryan thanked Taylor for winning a medal on his birthday and said it was the best present he could have gotten. So sweet Taylor took off his medal and tried to put it around his dad's neck.

The other exciting thing that happened to Ryan on his birthday was his first motorcycle ride of the spring. On his way home, he came around a corner that he noticed previously had quite a bit of broken glass. While watching the glass, he hit the painted crosswalk strip, the bike tried to go down and in saving the bike he broke his ankle. Thankfully, it's not horrible. He fractured the tip of his fibula, but the worst part is probably the sprain. He's in my old boot (the doctors and nurses marveled at my large feet and that the boot would fit my husband) and using crutches until he can put his full weight on the boot. I'm enjoying having a fifth boy to chauffeur until Ryan can put enough weight on his foot to push on the gas. (I am not sighing now, even though Ryan thinks I might be.)

Yes. Life is interesting. I'm just not sure it needs to involve so many broken bones at my house...