churro-making party

Seb's Spanish teacher gave them a group assignment to select a recipe featuring a Spanish or Latin American dish, and to cook it together, narrating the process in Spanish, all captured on video, which was to be submitted along with a sample of the food in question. Seb, Peyton, Nathan, and Jack decided to make churros with nutella. They gathered here on Sunday to bake and deep fry; much hilarity ensued. But in the end, they were very happy with their finished product and the video they created.

snow day

Portland got a record-breaking amount of snow on Wednesday -- 6-10 inches across the city. We had great drifts of it up here, closing the roads and creating a winter wonderland. Jasper and I snowshoed up to the cemetery on Skyline Blvd at dusk -- Liesl went out with friends after school and didn't come home until 8:30 - they sledded, they explored, they made snow angels. Seb stayed cozy for hours but then went outside with Jasper at 11 pm -- the two of them running up and down our street, laughing and enjoying the snow together. I only have my own photos, and none of the children, because they were entirely with their own friends and I didn't want to interfere.

And then Thursday was a snow day off from school for both kids. After working a few hours (meeting students over Zoom), Jasper and I had another snowshoe adventure into Forest Park - up the hill to Skyline, down Firelane 3 to the Wildwood trail - 6 beautiful and exhausting miles. Liesl went out at 9 am  and only returned at 5:30 pm, and then went for a second round of sledding in the dark; Seb went out with friends in the afternoon to sled and play tackle football in the snow.

Entering into Forest Park - we had to almost tunnel under these bowed branches.

x-country skiing at Teacup

The schools were closed today for teacher professional development, so I played hooky and took Liesl up to Mt Hood for a day of cross-country skiing. We returned to Teacup Nordic, the same place we went last year, and had a similarly memorable, amazing day. Liesl picked skiing back up as if no time had passed, and we were thus brave enough to try out the blue intermediate runs. The downhills were just fun for her this year and she sailed down smiling. 

Unfortunately, that meant I got a little over-ambitious and we ended up skiing probably 6+ miles, with the last 1.5 being entirely uphill. Liesl survived by playing music on my phone and quietly (angrily) cursing her mother. :)  

She was amazing. It was fantastic. Such a beautiful place, and a sunshine-y day, and I loved spending time outside with her having fun together.

Road trip vibes: had to stop to charge Tessy, which meant a run on snacks at Fred Meyer's in Sandy.

We had lunch on a snow bank in the sun.