In case the belly alone wasn't noticeable

This is what seven months pregnant in the snow looks like. I don't have any maternity ski clothes. I'm not even really sure anyone makes maternity ski clothes in this litigious society since it seems a little reckless to ski when you're T minus two months. I had thought I would just wear my ski pants unzipped for our weekend in Lake Tahoe, but it became clear that would not be an option when I could not get them over my ass. So I wore my jeans. But thankfully on her last visit my mom brought up a giant jacket that we have kept all these years for no reason and here I am in it. It was gifted to me by an old friend from Jr. High who later went to Georgetown and was somehow involved in traffic control for Bill Clinton's first inauguration. It's pylon orange, as you can tell, and, knowing that I always had a thing for orange, he let me have it. Or maybe I took it. Not important. It's size extra-large and since I am now extra-large, you better believe it came in handy on this trip.

On a side note, it reminded me of when I was a senior in college and Greg had graduated early to go do a service project in South Africa. We actually wrote letters to each other on those flimsy blue airmail trifolds. Once he sent me an orange beaded bracelet from Swaziland that I adored. I showed it to my boyfriend at the time and complained how come he didn't know that orange was my favorite color. I was obviously looking to pick a fight, as was my way at the six week point of any relationship. And he said, because this guy has known you since you were twelve and I've known you all of two months. He had a point. Which is why I kept him around for three more months before I had to let him go.

Where was I? Yes, trudging around in my gigantic orange jacket all weekend. We took the kids skiing and tubing and sledding. And they ran around the house in their long underwear playing made-up games with their cousins. Sixty degrees and 20 feet of new snow thanks to our most recent storm, the one that lasted forty days and forty nights and officially ended California's drought. EPIC.

Junior has a thing for orange too.