It's been a two year hiatus, but the Yellow House vacation is back!
And this year we leveled UP.
There's all kinds of wash outs along the Coq from flooding.
The Tunnels are closed.
So right off the bat we leveled up by making a river crossing to get to the actual trail to Falls Lake:
Jim gets hands on and jumps right in. Only my feet get in. Andrew gets in up to his knee caps, but he's down to his undies just in case.
I have a picture from a few years ago with Andrew and his bare bum at this lake.
I think there were lots of bare bums that year.
Traditions bend my mind, because that lake is the same, and the mountain is the same,
but we are all different. We have middle schoolers. They crack jokes and tease each other in a big kid way.
Our relationship has advanced since the last time we were here - two years of being in a covid cohort plus all the other life events that have bonded us. More than ever it was like being on vacation with cousins.
You know how you never step in the same river twice? I feel like this whole vacation was so much the same, but so much has changed.
When we got to Silver Star and walked into the Yellow House, guess what, it had not been cleaned yet and all the maids had gone home for the day.
So level up number two, they sent us to another house down the road, twice as big. So many bedrooms, so many living rooms, so many spiders, so many garages. Three levels of space for kids to play.
It's similar to THE Yellow House, but different (more pink) - which is exactly the vibe of the whole trip this year - the same but different.
At first the kids were so bummed: what about TRADITION?
When we walked into the new house they moaned
"dang it, it's awesome. Why does it have to be so great?"
We named it Yellow House Two Point Yellow.
There was so much to explore, games in cupboards to play, VHS tapes to scatter around.
Now when we make food at the giant bar, there is a tv on the wall right there where the kids can order drinks and watch Deal or No Deal (over and over and over!)
Jim and Joe rolled out to ride the mountain, and the rest of us prepped to climb the mountain.
I remember dealing with little kid tantrums in the past - this year we had some middle school sized issues to wrestle with.
I had to give Evan a talking to about begging for things out of one side of his mouth, and complaining/yelling out of the other side. I hope I will never be a mother who rewards complaining and yelling with whatever treat you are demanding.
We hiked this mountain after that lecture and he went out of his way to have a good attitude and not complain.
Climbing this mountain used to be such a feat.
Now they march up on strong, long legs no problem. Andrew was thirsty until I reminded him he is carrying a bag of water with a straw on his back.
We met the boys at the top.
Man, these boys are so good at biking. The things they see and the cliffs they descend...
They are so brave and crazy and make mountain biking look easy (it is not easy!)
They dropped into a double black, and we went on a Gnome Roam.
There is now a Gnome Roam at the TOP of the mountain for mothers and children to enjoy.
But guess what, we have outgrown the Gnome Roam. Imagine such a thing.
EVEN I was like, blah blah blah.
I guess that would be the next obvious level up of the trip - giving the gnome roam a giant blah blah blah.
The top of the mountain was hot and beautiful and tiring.
We made our way back to Yellow House 2.Y and ate lunch and took a nap while the kids played games.
Down time is the best. Up time is the best.
Eventually I took my new bike for a ride around a cross country trail.
When I got back to the village, I found all the kids riding the pump track. Then Lisa and Hunter and Andrew showed up and I got so stoked because the Yellow House is up on a pretty good hill, and Andrew had not yet mastered riding a bike down hills.
And now here he was at the bottom! Lisa and Hunter showed him how to ride the brakes - hold the brakes half way, not all the way.
(You should have heard him whining and yelling "it hurts so bad!" when it was time to climb back up the hill to go home.)
Soon Jim and Joe were done for the day, and we met up with our one thousand bikes lined up in a row.
We debriefed in the shade while the kids did whatever, I don't really know: lawn checkers, playground, window shopping.
We went home and made the most difficult dinner.
So many pots of boiled stuffed pasta, a cheese sauce, pan frying. So many dirty dishes.
We will not be having pierogies at the yellow house ever again.
That night we walked out to see the Crankworks slope style course they built for the next week's competition. It's amazing what human beings have come up with: building such a thing, and riding such a course.
See that painting of a goblin on the wall to your right? It's painted on the actual wall.
Lots of questionable decoration choices in Yellow House 2.Y.
The next day we took a day off from biking and headed to Lake Kalamalka.
It was so hot, and the water felt so good. It had Tahoe vibes with the clear water and the giant Ponderosa Pines.
We hiked to Rattlesnake Point and got so hot and sweaty, primed to jump back in the lake.
Here is Jim taking a picture of us...
...and here is Joe taking a picture of Jim taking a picture of us.
We hiked back down to the lake and jumped right in and nothing has felt more refreshing.
The second lake jump was extra fun - chicken fighting and all that. Blessed water in a scorching place.
We stopped at Superstore on our way back up the mountain.
Don't you love walking around a store with a whole party on vacation? Stocking up on drinks and garbage and more nutella. Plus tons of treats. Remember the first year we acted like we don't eat a mountain of treat while on vacation? We had just one modest package of President's Choice cookies. ha
That night we handed the kids a box of mac n cheese, and us adults went to The Red Antler for dinner. The goat cheese and beet salad...I want to eat it right now. Jim's pork smothered poutine. mmmm.
The next day was the ultimate LEVEL UP of all the land. It was my favorite day!
In the morning we played around in the village while Jim and Joe rode the mountain.
Andrew fell on the monkey bars and got the wind knocked out of him.
He's always got some kind of shiner.
We did the trampoline thingy...The kids were mildly entertained.
What we were really waiting for was the afternoon when we would join the boys on the chair lift to do some runs on the mountain with our actual bike for the first time.
After lunch, we took our nervous tummies and lined up to buy tickets. We were all heightened in nervous energy, the whole pack of us there at the ticket booth attaching our tickets to our bikes with short tempers facing the unknown, everyone practicing the bike lift thingy while Avery counted the time limit of 5 seconds.
The only way to get down to the lift was on a run called "Easy Street". But everybody! it wasn't THAT easy of a street - lots of steepish birms and stuff.
But we made it! That was the hardest, most intense part of ride.
From then on we rode Challenger trail and it was so great and so perfectly easy/difficult!
Also did I tell you about how Jim bought me and Avery new beautiful forever bikes that fit so perfect?
He's the best.
Does Bailey look like she has been put in time out?
She is the pro of the group - she went riding blue trails with Jim after the first lap on Challenger.
For the first run, this was our group plus Joe, Lisa and Hudson.
I loved riding with these kids. It was so fun filing down in a lineup:
Jim led the pack, and I brought up the rear. I loved riding behind Hunter yelling about how loud his brakes were.
For the second run, Lisa and Joe went to fetch Avery so she could take a turn on the mountain.
She and Lisa shared Avery's new mountain bike.
Joe took a picture of us,
I took a picture of them.
What you can't see is the stupid mosquitos eating them up. I'm so sorry.
I even yelled from the lift "Do you have mosquito repellent?" I knew exactly what torture they were in for.
We met up with Avery at the end of this Cross Mountain Trail to see if she wanted to take a rip on Challenger. She was a little bit timid about it and didn't know if she really wanted to.
We found ourselves in a similar situation to 2018 when we were in that exact spot with all the mosquitos biting and Hudson refusing to get on his strider and get out of there.
Remember I threw him in the trailer and took off because I couldn't handle the mosquitos for another second?
Well here we are, the 2022 version of the same place, with the same insane mosquitos eating us. Avery had to make a decision: ride down the mountain and up the chair lift, or go back to the village on this easy paved trail.
Times up, you have to make a decision right now, I can't stand here any longer!
I practically threw her in my trailer and we flew down the mountain.
It was the right decision. She rode Challenger, no problem. She was such a natural sandwiched between Joe and I coaching her along. But she didn't even need us.
By the third run, kids' hands were getting sore and tired. I can't believe how hard it is to ride a bike down the mountain! I wish I could watch Jim on his trails.
It was such a fabulous day. We all felt so stoked on this new level of Silver Star.
It felt similar to when we hiked up the mountain that first time years ago.
(Andrew is the only one who didn't bike down the mountain, but we will work up to that.
haha. His big accomplishment was riding down to the village from the Yellow House.)
That night we went for a drive to look at all the amazing houses, and we came upon this bear!
Where is its mama.
We sat and watched him play around hoping the big mama would come lumbering around.
We got to reminiscing about all the years of Yellow House - all the pictures that we must take every year, and some remakes from when they were younger.
That last night the kids turned off all the lights (except for the wall sconces) and played ghost in the graveyard. There was so much screaming and giggling.
There is such a cousin vibe with these kids - lots of hugging and remembering and playing games.
I love it so much.
The last day we packed up the house. So sad.
We prepped the kids for the couch picture remake:
Look how much we've grown.
Right before this, Jim had the car packed up including Andrew's bike broken down and stored in the back seat. Then the kids wanted to ride down to the pump track one last time, so Jim had to rip everything from the car and piece together Andrew's bike for him.
Andrew came up to me and whispered "is he mad?" haha
Worth it to go on a few more rips on the pump track though.
I told him, you better ride the heck out of that bike.
It's so hard to leave this place.
We took one last group picture, constructing a "tripod" from two sticks laying on the ground.
Right as the picture snapped, the phone fell off the "tripod". haha
So we asked a dude without a shirt on to take the picture.
Delicious bbq...one last meal.
If you are wondering why the mom is in the back seat it's because the mom is a peacemaker and there is nowhere I would rather be than in the peace.
I recently heard a description that fits blogging perfectly: its like taking all the ocean water of experience and summing it up into a little cup. That's what blogging this kind of thing is like. I can't even describe it.
