Blogs from Big Bear Lake, California, United States, North America

The day started around 3am with Rosie crying about nothing and everyone having a rough night's sleep. Vivian wanted to sleep in bed with Mommy and Daddy and when trying to transition back into her crib, she rolled over or smashed up close to Steve's back and cried that she wanted "Daddy's bed" so we let her toss and turn in bed with us after that because it was cute and we were too tired to fight with her. Since the sunlight came up early everyone was up and ready for the fun day planned ahead at the Big Bear Zoo. First, we had breakfast before spending an hour at Sugarloaf Park again. We wanted to see if Steve would balance on the seesaw vs. the other 4 members of the family, and as the pictures ... read more

Today was our first day of skiing in Big Bear (and my first day of skiing ever!). As we'd already collected our lift and equipment passes yesterday afternoon we were able to skip the lines and go straight to collect our ski equipment (and in Joel’s case board equipment). We'd arrived early (about 8.15am) so we had an hour and a half before our lessons started. We grabbed a coffee (worse one ever) and watched the people already on the runs. Joel was booked for Beyond Beginner Ride however somehow (after having to swap meeting locations a couple of times) ended up in the Guaran Ride Beginner (entry level). Darren, Dan and I were booked in the Guaran Ski Beginner - which was great value - $79 (holiday prices) for 4 hours of instruction (2 hours ... read more

Today is our first (full day) in Big Bear. Dan was going to wake me up early (5am) but i slept through until Darren woke me at about 7.15am (though Dan claims he was awake at 5am but it was 'too dark' to play in the snow so he decided not to wake me). After breakfast the boys and I attempted to build a snow man. Dan was using a shovel but even so we couldn't seem to create the perfect snow man shape - ours looked like a volcano. Surprisingly you could sit and kneel in the snow (with snow pants) and it wasn't that cold! Darren ended up bringing two left hand snow gloves from Perth so he ducked off to Kmart (with instructions to also buy red food colouring for our volcano) whilst ... read more

Big Bear Snowboarding Adventure. A group of us decided to go up to Big Bear for the weekend. A trip that usually takes 2 hours turned into 6 hours because of a terrible storm. The had to take the longest way up the mountain since roads were closed and ended up having to help push people in cars up the mountain. When we finally got there we stayed in a hostel that sadly barely had heat, BRRR!! 4am, time to go to sleep to get up a 8 for the slopes. a few of us learned and a few of us were already snowboarding pros. The weekend was full of learning pains (literally) and moments of epiphanies when snowboarding finally made sense..I'm hooked. ... read more

Big Bear Lake. A 5.5 hour road trip from Phoenix seemed worth it to capture that snowy holiday feel that just seems to feel right this time of year. We were lucky enough to find some available time in the timeshare location just a mile from the lifts in Big Bear City. The large snow storm expected was a surprise we heard just a couple days prior to our drive out. Clear roads and sunshine escorted us up to lofty elevation of 7000 feet. Our first morning brought snow flakes and driving winds that nearly shut the small town down and gave us a good reason to stay inside the majority of the day sipping cocoa. Sunshine the next day lured us to the mountains at SUMMIT where we enjoyed a perfect day of light powder ... read more