Get fit challenge and other thoughts

I'm taking a get fit challenge for six weeks.  Here's the link to the challenge.  It's been good so far.  I've lost three pounds this week even though I haven't followed it perfectly (I've had three minus points: 1 for regular pasta with my spaghetti, 1 for sour dough bread with a steak sandwich and 1 for my pizza crust).  I just needed something to give me a good kick in the butt and this seems to be motivating me.  Brad's on a diet too.  He's decided to cut out his third evening dinner.  He has lost no weight yet.  He is not disappointed at all because he says he was already a specimen before the diet started.

A good thing about having more than one child and having them so close in age is that the other children can't do anything without us finding out from one of their other siblings what they are doing.  People always ask me what we do with our kids while we work.  Well, we let the kids watch the kids, and they do.  This Monday, for example, the kids had a snow day and Brad and I had to work.  While we were gone the boys got on the computer to play computer games.  This is strictly forbidden in our home.  I'm not against the boys playing computer games necessarily, but I want them to realize that the computer is a tool, not a toy.  Anyhow, they were caught on camera by Kenzie playing the games.  The result:  1 month grounding from entertainment, computer or movies.  It's awesome to have kids that tell on each other.

It's been snowing here all week long.  I think we've gotten a cumulative snowfall around 3 feet.  Up on the mountains they've gotten much more. 

Brad is so proud of himself, he spent more time skiing than working this week without even taking any time off.  Jordan, on the other hand, cut school several times in order to accompany his delinquent father.  When Jordan flunks out of school and becomes a ski bum I'll know who to blame.  Brad and Jordan managed to stitch together three powder days over a period of 4 days at three different ski areas.  Day one was the family day I mentioned earlier. The kids and I stayed on the regular hill at our favorite local ski hill (I've advanced to the blues and am cool enough to hang with Ben and Riley) while Brad and Jordan hiked up the knife ridge to spend the day making fresh tracks in horseshoe bowl.  Sometimes the avalanche mitigation efforts on the ski hill takes a few days to complete.  As a special treat, the 40 inches of new snow from the most recent storm was still waiting for those willing to make a small hike.  Day 2 Brad took Jordan cat skiing up to a local mountain where Jordan had his first real experience back country skiing.  Then on Saturday they got up early to drive to T-ride in a blizzard to cut more fresh tracks down double diamonds all day long. Jordan had never seen runs that steep or moguls that big all mingled with some nasty tree skiing. Needless to say they had some great bonding moments. Brad gets really excited when a day of skiing ends with icicles hanging from his beard and mild frost burn on his face.  Jordan said dads blind snow passes in the family suburban were the most exciting part.  He loves roosting on any kind of subaru that he catches in mountain passes in near whiteout conditions.  Jordan helped spot oncoming traffic around corners which saved them on more than one sketchy pass.