We played hooky....

....one of the beauties that blanket homeschooling. I love the flexibility it affords. And some much needed family time.

Early in the week, the weatherman was forecasting some snow for our area. Not a lot, but enough to get us excited about hitting the slopes, once again. To add to that beauty, a good friend blessed us with a handful of free lift tickets to a new favorite ski spot close by. We played the wait and see game, waiting to see it the snow would actually come (you know those weatherman have been known to be wrong), and to see if my husband's calendar stayed open for that day. It did.

The only hiccup was my scheduled radiation. You can't easily play hooky from cancer. It has a way of showing up and staying around, and permeating every aspect of life. As the week wore on, I discussed this with my radiation nurses, whom I might add, I have grown to love. We joke. We laugh together each day. Our lives are becoming connected. Cancer does that. A beauty of the disease. A beauty that I love, as I am a connected person. I actually look forward to seeing them everyday. Crazy, I know.

Ok, I digress. Too many thoughts stirred up in my head.

I asked the nurses if I could change my time on Friday from 1:45 to early morning, telling them that we were going to try to take the kids skiing. They willingly obliged. On Thursday, as the snow seemed imminent, we discussed through Friday morning's treatment, as the snow was due to arrive overnight. It would make for a slippery ride to the Radiation Oncology Dept. in the early morning hours.  Testing the waters, I asked what would happen if I missed a day? Would that be ok? And they said the day would just get added on to the end. With that information, and the above pieces creating a beautiful picture..... I did in fact play hooky and off to the slopes we went.

I have a lot of momma guilt that I have been dealing with lately. That I should be doing more. Being more present when I can. More engaged. And the daily stress of leaving each day for treatment, begins to wear on us all. It is hard. This round of treatment presses in on all fronts of daily home life, unlike chemo, where you got a "normal week" between bi-weekly treatments. Both sides are beasts with different names. And then I come home from treatment and just feel tired. And the selfish me rears its ugly head, as all I want to do is crawl into bed and shut everything out for just a little while and rest, decompress, close my eyes.

I haven't found the balance just yet.

And so, Friday, I put it all aside, and off to the slopes we went. Not that I'll make a habit of doing this, but yesterday, it felt good and the kids thanked us as we drove home at the end of the day.

On a side note, midway into the day, Seth came back to the ski lodge saying his head hurt, his body ached and his belly wasn't quite right. He put two chairs together and laid in the lodge for the afternoon. We left early in the evening because he just wasn't feeling well. He awoke in the night and thankfully made it to the bathroom just in time.  The stomach bug has officially invited itself into our home. I pray no one else gets hit with it.

Our little snow bunny. She has finally mastered skiing independently after hours of snowplowing alongside daddy. 

Jed and I spent most of the morning skiing together. Well he snowboards. I ski. He is quite good  I might add and many an adult snowboarder stopped us yesterday asking how old he was.
And one even said, "Wow, he boards better than I do!"

Me and my little boy riding to the top. 

Getting in line to do it all again. 

Ben, Luke and daddy riding up the lift. So much fun!!

Much love,
Stacy