Skiing Vancouver Island

It’s already March; we’re switching back to daylight savings time this coming weekend and the GoFundMe campaign for Veeka’s braces is at an even $3,000, thanks to many people. More is needed, but Veeka’s had her first orthodontist appointment at the University of Washington dental school mainly so they can assess what she needs. I’ve already had other private orthodontists do that, but most of them charged way more and the UW likes having their students do their own assessments. So there we are.The biggest thing we’ve done in recent weeks is travel to north across the border to Vancouver Island, where I had a travel assignment for a piece on the Mt. Washington Alpine Resort  about 70 miles north of Nanaimo. The tourism bureau picked up a lot of our expenses (that’s the beauty of travel writing) so we could sample the slopes. Anyone who’s been watching the weather out here knows the West Coast has gotten a ton of snow this winter, so the skiing is pretty nice. We stayed in the town of Courtenay where there were lots of decent restaurants and less snow. A few days before we left, I discovered the Veeka had outgrown all her snow wear, so we found a very nice consignment shop in Courtenay called the Blue Toque where we loaded up on some boots, snow pants and a cheap pair of cross-country skiis for me. The U.S. dollar goes far in Canada, so why not?We did tubing the first day, I tried some cross-country ski trails the second and Veeka took her first downhill lesson on our last day there. She learned how to do a basic snow plow and discovered she really LIKES doing downhill as opposed to cross-country (which she picked up in Fairbanks). Am hoping I can get her into some more lessons. We also visited some local parks, a place called Morningstar Farm and Little Qualicum Cheeseworks, which not surprisingly is a dairy farm that produces lots of cheese. That region is truly ski-to-sea, as we were on the slopes in the morning and in the afternoon wandering about some of the beaches on the Georgia Strait. A beach area called Goose Spit Park in nearby Comox was particularly beautiful. There was tons of driftwood and many lovely places to sit and gaze on the mountains and water. One morning when we were eating breakfast in aMeanwhile, preparations for my upcoming book continue. Last Sunday, I spoke to a group of Lewis & Clark College alumni about In the House of the Serpent Handler: A Story of Faith and Fleeting Famein the Age of Social Media and showed them some videos of serpent handlers. Peoples’ mouths always drop open when they see that stuff and I realize how fortunate I was to have a front row seat into that culture for 3 years.And Veeka pulled off a minor triumph this year in that she sold 132 boxes of Girl Scout cookies in the past two weeks. For reasons beyond our control, she wasn’t able to start selling until two weeks ago after most of the girls had wrapped up their door-to-door sales. I don’t have a workplace where I can twist peoples’ arms to buy cookies and Veeka’s school won’t let her sell to employees there. A lot of girls have their parents sell tons of boxes for them! But other than a few orders from family, all our sales were from schlepping from door to door within a half-mile of where we live. Some of those apartment complexeswere a bit dicey but even in the strangest places we found buyers. Will say that the past two years, the weather has been simply dreadful every time we've schlepped around the neighborhood. Nothing like dodging puddles. Her last year total was 50 boxes but this year, she was quite the pro, walking up to peoples’ doors and giving them the spiel. Starting this month, she'll be sitting in front of supermarkets helping the Scouts sell cookies to all the foot traffic. We did all this last year so it won't be completely new. Other than that, I just marked my second anniversary (March 1) writing for the GetReligion.org blog, for which I'm now doing 13 blogs/month. That amount increased from 11 last December. There are a few other things bubbling away that I hope to write about soon, if they turn out. I'm still subbing two days a week for the Issaquah School District and all of that in elementary schools. Being there gives me a whole new respect for teachers plus I've gotten lots of colds this year. Wonder why?