Wrestling is for GIRLS!

That's right.  Lorien is wrestling this year.  She mentioned it in the fall and Will thought she had a crush on one of the boys on the team and so wanted to wrestle to hang out with him more.  Nope.  She just wanted to wrestle like her Dad. 

So, she attended the open mat nights in the fall and started on the team when the season started in November.  Will agreed to come help coach and they were off to the races...and by races I mean smelly wrestling rooms.

It has been so good for her.  She does not like to do hard things and wrestling is no exception.  But she persists and keeps on trying.  She lost every. single. match...but had some close ones.  She learned some lessons and got stronger.

When Will was in high school there were only a handful of girls in the whole state of Montana who wrestled.  When they would have a girl as their opponent some of Will's teammates would forfeit the match.  There was no glory in beating a girl and they weren't going to risk losing to one either.  Now, 20 plus years later, there are whole tournaments for girls.  There is almost always a girls bracket at every meet.  AND, my favorite thing by far, her team of boys is so supportive of her.  She is the only girl on the team.  We all sit on the stands together and when she is called up all the boys start tapping each other for attention.  They say "Hey, Lorien's up, let's go" and head over to her mat.  They stand on the sides in a big group and cheer her on.  I want to cry every time I hear "Hey, Lorien is up!" and watch them stand in mass.  It is great...better than great...awesome.

I am so proud of her.  Unfortunately, we didn't know she had to turn in a form by December 5th to get wrestling counted as a PE credit for this year.  Good thing she wants to wrestle again next season!

Lots of rain in our town means lots of snow in the mountains...

Oh merciful heavens, have we been getting pummeled with rain this winter.  It is awesome!  Every time it rains, it comes in buckets and the snowpack is growing like gangbusters.

For the first time in a long time, there is plenty of snow up in the mountains.  We were all so excited to make our annual pilgrimage out to the snow (for one whole day).  

It did not disappoint.  We found a great place to play and sled the very first year we went out to snow...like the very beginning of 2013?  It was out in the Stanislaus National Forest.  There are three roads that go through the forest and after the first trip, and with the drought, we couldn't remember where the great snow place was!  We tried all of the roads and this year we finally got the right one.  It was perfect.  We found a Snopark (where you pay to park and just play in the snow around the parking lot...in the middle of a forest) and spent the whole day.

The kids were over the moon happy.  Clare did a back flop into the snow as soon as we arrived...and back flopped onto a stick.  We learned that the depth of the snow was deceiving.  We found a few fun sled runs and had a blast.  We threw snowballs and built a snowman.  Colter stuck to the sidelines playing with his trucks.  We had snacks and water (thanks to about 15 trips back to the car by yours truly). 

It was such a fun trip.  Now we know where to go every time (Strawberry).

 As we were unearthing our bodies from layers of snow clothes, Lorien discovered a beautiful view out onto the valley.  The sun was streaming through the clouds and lighting all of the frozen trees in gold.  It was stunning!

Dinner at Applebees on the way home (where Colter whispered "I hate that guy's voice" about our waiter) and you've got yourself a successful snow day for the Andersons.

First hike of the New Year!

Ringing in the New Year with a family hike was a great idea.  We haven't hiked our local hills when they have been this green (thanks for all the rain!).

Our shoes got caked with mud.  California mud does not dilute with water and becomes the stickiest clay you can imagine.  All of our shoes grew a few sizes as we hiked.

We took the same trail we took on our very first hike in Danville.  Up to Las Trampas and up to Fort Anderson, a grove of trees you can see from all over the valley.  From Fort Anderson you can see the whole bay area.  It is beautiful!  We did not count on a storm blowing in as we hiked.  It got really cold and windy up at Fort Anderson and started raining as we hiked down.  Another memorable family hike in the books.