Tag: Spring Break

April 2, 2025 – Cross Training

April 2, 2025 / / 0 Comments

I won’t say that I grew up skiing, but I did go probably once or twice a year in the high school years. Once I got to college, I purchased my own skis and would go four or five times a year. But once we moved to South Carolina, I got rid of them and never did it again. That is, until a couple of weekends ago.

We have been to the snow a number of times over the years. Sometimes it was to take out of town family to take lessons. Sometimes it was to take our kids to take a lesson. Always, I would just stay in the lodge with my wife while they did their thing. The truth is, I was never a good skier and I was afraid that being older and out of shape was a recipe for injury.

Our exchange student loves the snow. He has been invited four or five times since he has been here. So, this was a family trip. Since my kids had very limited experience, we decided to take lessons. Good decision since it has been 25 years since I had even been on skis. My wife asked me, do I want beginner’s or advanced lessons. I think that I already know about the snow plow, so I chose advanced.

It turns out that there were eight levels of lessons. We ended up at level 4. Since my one and only lesson was a couple hours at 14, I actually learned a lot of things that I did not know. Plus, equipment rental was included in the price of the lesson. The result was that I am way more confident now than I was before we went on the trip.

There was a lot of struggle with this experience. At first, I couldn’t get my boots to buckle. After carrying everything downstairs to the rental, the tech just undid the buckle. Then, as I was testing the boot fit, one of the instructors told me that the boots were too big. It was not easy to get my feet in the boot, I was already sweating profusely just trying to test fit.

The new equipment does seem to be better than it used to be. The one and only time I fell was getting on the chairlift with my boys when they did not leave enough room for me to sit down on the chair. During our lessons, we practiced control, skiing back and forth across the mountain. This technique took a lot of physical effort. Rather than carving swiftly down the mountain, we were inching our way down. Runs were taking 30 minutes.

By the time the lesson was over, I was definitely ready for a break. My knee was hurting a little bit and my thighs were burning. There were periods of total sweating from the exertion of control. After we had lunch, I decided to sit it out while the kids went off.

After an extra half an hour, I went out alone. By this time the mountain was getting a lot busier with new people all over the easier slopes, I do mean all over. This meant that I had to practice my controlled descent even more intensely. By the time I got to the bottom, my physical reserve was gone. I didn’t want to risk tweaking my knee or eating it a bunch of times.

The reality is that I didn’t get my money’s worth from a lift ticket and rental standpoint. I was only skiing about two and a half hours. But I definitely got my workout’s worth. The next day, I could hardly walk up the stairs, my thighs were still burning and I was out of breath going up and down to my office. Having not skied in so long I had no idea what muscles were going to hurt. I feel good about what I got from the lessons and my confidence has improved tremendously.

End Your Programming Routine: I stand by my decision to quit early. I could feel my body fatigue on the last run was at the edge of empty. It was definitely more fun than sitting in the lodge all day but it doesn’t make me want to run out and buy skis again. I still think cross country skiing might be a better fit for me now. After a good long hike the day before, I was bushed for several days afterward. That sounds like good cross training for me.

March 20, 2023 – My World Tour

March 20, 2023 /

Sometimes we joke that we are going on a Griswold Family Vacation. That is partially based on where we are going and how we are going to achieve it. I myself have some additional business travel that I am not really looking forward to as well as us driving all over the southwestern United States.

I also spend a lot of time talking about the types of trips that I took throughout my life during the Spring Break period. This is to give an idea about the things that we have done and provide inspiration for you to make your own memories.

End Your Programming Routine: Time seems to be accelerating. By the time we get to the Summer, my family is starting to scatter to the wind. I talk about some of the reasons we are taking this trip in the podcast. I am definitely not getting sentimental, but my kid’s futures are starting to get real. Enjoy your time while you have it.

March 21, 2022 -What is Seafoam Green?

March 21, 2022 /

When I was young enough to have a spring break, going to the beach meant Cancun, Daytona or Padre Island. At least that is what I saw on MTV, remember this is pre-internet. Of course, I was never going to spend that kind of money so we settled on the Oregon coast. Frequently, we spend a couple of days during spring break week.

As I wrote about last week, a storm was coming, but we were going to the beach anyway. The family was staying for several days but I was just spending the day and taking the dog for a long walk. The truth is, the weather wasn’t as bad as I was expecting (for a storm). The surf was rough and I ran across to big piles of foam.

I don’t think the picture did it true justice. When I saw this in person, I thought it looked yellowish rather than greenish. I would say the picture looks more brown than green or yellow. You get the point. When I hear the name, I think of a washed out green. Or maybe a better description is Kelly green with a lot of white added to it.

I once heard an interview with Sherwin Williams marketing and the person said that each color name is unique and never to be repeated or changed. That means when they come up with a new color, they have to validate that the name has not been used before. What I can’t remember was what person in my life questioned the origin of the name Seafoam Green. When I saw this pile of foam, that question popped in my mind and I took a picture and now I am writing this.

End Your Programming Routine: I am keeping it light today. I guess this is more of an anecdote rather than my typical writing, but that’s OK because I am on spring break too.

March 16, 2022 – You Know Spring Break is Coming…

March 16, 2022 /

Spring Break starts this week for my kids. For me, this means that it is final’s week at the local university and things like traffic lighten up a little bit for the next couple of weeks. Since I live on Main Street, I see a direct correlation between school being in session and traffic.

However, I know that it is going to be spring break when I look at the weather forecast. Growing up, we often took extended camping trips during this week. I can think of multiple times it rained like cats and dogs the entire trip. In college, I remember distinctly having an inch of water in my tent with wet sleeping bags, pillows and clothes.

Lately, it has been more often a beach house rental. At least we are sheltered from elements but it tends to keep us in the house and less out and about. I don’t want to say that every trip was wet. I had a rafting trip on the John Day river that was dry. Ironically, 2020 at the pandemic’s very beginning it was a beautiful week as well. In fact the entire spring was dry as I spent 90% of the time working on the house. Remember that we had huge wildfires that fall as well.

I also don’t want to sound like I am complaining because I am not. I am simply saying that I cannot count on consistently nice weather during spring break. Any plans are subject to a deluge. Of course that is relative to where the plans are as well I am mostly talking about reasonably distanced local trips that are 4-5 days long.

End Your Programming Routine: With risk comes reward. Sometimes playing it safe, you miss the best opportunities. I am simply saying, make seasonally appropriate plans and prepare for the what-ifs. This year I am saving my vacation but the family is going to spend four days at the coast. I will be home to take care of the animals and work, but I will get some free time as well.

March 27, 2020 – Nearing the end of Spring Break

March 27, 2020 /

We took this week to have a stay-cation being that it was supposed to be Spring Break. Our plans were to meet up with another family and spend the week on the coast for some rest and relaxation. That changed first with them coming down with suspected Covid-19 and then the state lockdown.

Next week, we are instituting a much more rigid schedule that will include personal development (self paced learning, reading, art/music, etc.) time, earlier bedtimes and wakeup times. This will be in place until we get word that life will be returning to normal – hopefully April 28.

I am sure everyone that is enduring this period seriously is finding aspects of the quarantine challenging. I am a person that treasures my alone time and personal space, that has been hard to find. But I am also a person that thinks family time is valuable. Here are some of the ways that we have been enjoying the time together.

Puzzles an games for hours
  • Puzzles – This 1000 piece puzzle pictured above took us three solid days to complete. This is a staple activity for our vacation time. It allows everyone to participate and interact for long periods of time
  • Games – I went back in the waaaay back machine to dig out old role playing games (from the 1980s!), build characters and adventure. We also have played Monopoly, poker and Mind Trap.
  • Family movies at night – We have been working our way through the Twilight Series and in honor of Kenny Rogers we watched ‘The Gambler’ the other night.
  • Swap Day – The kids were the parents and the parents were the kids. They planned and executed all of the meals as well as led the entertainment decisions for the day.
  • Cooking- We have been making comfort foods. We have been doing the activity with different family members and involving them in different aspects. A lot more baking and deserts have been made recently.
  • Create parody video – We wrote, acted, filmed and edited a video that was a lot of laughs. We are still in the editing phase, but should be up on YouTube shortly.
  • Make-over time – Not really, but my wife has been bugging me to shave my head for years. So I did, to see what it would look like.

I have to say that a lot of these things I would normally not want to spend time doing. But it seems as though forcing the issue has made something like Monopoly enjoyable. As we head into next week, hopefully it will be an empowering time teaching the kids that they don’t need school to learn and find interest in pursuing their personal projects.