your path is lovely

Blogs can be dangerous places.

Same with all social media.

The glimpses we get of other's lives can overwhelm us.

It appears that others are doing so much.

Baking amazing things, sewing amazing things, decorating amazing things, crafting amazing things with their children, giving amazing things charitably, wearing amazing things, saying amazing things, visiting amazing things, being amazing things, and on and on (amazingly).

I get so much inspiration.

But...

It is easy to get caught feeling very un-amazing in your own life.

Can I get an amen?

I in NO WAY am under the mistaken impression that my blog is going to do this to the three people who read it. :)

But, I have been told that it just seems like my life is all so great after reading my blog.

And it makes me wonder if I am misleading.

Of course I haven't recorded the desperate way I called a family council last week (ASAP!) because we needed to figure out how to better work together as a family. 

Or how Chris and I have had some issues creep into our marriage over the past month that have been very hurtful and hard to work through.

I could go on for a loooong time.

But here's the thing.

I love life. 

Especially the small, but important moments.

I might forget if I don't take the time to slow down.

And remember.

The worries are definitely still there for all of us.

Several good conversations at church and with friends and family over the past few days have helped me feel very grateful that we are all so different.

We each have our own unique path to travel.

Hopefully we are all traveling to one true end destination, but we will take such different ways to get there.

And that makes me happy.

How boring if we all chose to do things exactly the same.

I want to be a cheerleader to my other travelers and surround myself with people who will cheer me on.

And eventually I hope I can find the strength to ignore those who may not like the look of my path.

And, because this has become too wordy and that makes me uncomfortable...

Some pictures.

Keeping in lines with choosing our own path...

One day last week, our family decided to do that.

Everyone stayed home from school and we had a ski day.

It was So. Great.

Wow...started out with less than favorable visibility.

But that did not lessen the excitement for this dude.
It was his first time skiing!!!!
He couldn't wait.

The older "pros" gave Austin lots of pointers.

Grab a pole, and we're off!

Yeah!

Oh, hey guys.

Carson LOVES it.
I just wish he didn't love the tree areas so much.

Enjoying some lunch in the lodge.

Man, I should have brought more food...they worked up an appetite.

He mastered the magic carpet and he's ready for a little more excitement.

You can't tell, but we were so happy to have the sun popping out.

Letting me catch a quick shot as she went by.

I've mentioned how we just started getting snow here recently.

Because of that, the local ski resort just opened.

The latest opening in recorded history.

I am here to openly admit the real reason.

It's because of us.

For the first time ever, I bought season passes for my kids.

And the universe hates me. :)

We looked ahead for a time to go as a family and it was going to be awhile.

That's why we went on a school day.

Chris and I loved how the kids were so unsure about missing school to do this.

They are very conscientious.

I guess they are getting grown up enough to realize that it is really more trouble to make up everything you missed than to just be there and do it.

The older two start earlier, so they wanted to go to their first few classes and have us pick them up on our way out of town...rather than sleep in and go.

Can you believe it?  haha

So that's what we did.

We had such a great day hanging out together.