Sledding and Winter Fun!

 This winter has been pretty tame in December and January.  But, February came and so did the snow!  The boys have been sledding as much as possible.

Aside from being outside there have been a lot of games of Rubic's Cube and Stratego, Nerf wars in the basement, Mario Kart races on the Switch, and movies.  School of Rock and Finding Ohana have been some recent favorites.  We're really just trying to keep busy so we don't lose our minds being stuck inside, especially this year with all the COVID restrictions.  We still haven't eaten inside a restaurant in over a year and we've really kept to our circle of friends/family that we've seen throughout the pandemic.  I'm back at work now in my building with students coming this week, the kids are doing half days with full days coming soon, and Scott will be returning to his building in March.  We are dreaming of warmer weather, our upcoming trip to Kentucky and Tennessee for spring break, and some home projects finished...

Mid-Winter Break Staycation 2021

 It's been a longggg winter indoors.  Especially this winter with COVID.  We had plans to go up north to ski and sled again at Nana and Pops' cottage, but Luna had an upper respiratory infection (thanks, doggie daycare) and needed to stay away from other dogs for 5-7 days.  To say the kids were bummed is an understatement.  We frantically scrambled to come up with a few fun things we could do at home last minute.  

I had Friday off of work, but the rest of the family did not.  I decided to pull the boys out of school so that I could take them skiing with me.  Evan had been begging us to let him try snowboarding since October when we went to a ski-swap so I figured Friday would be a good day for that.  We arrived just after opening at Alpine Valley and were shocked to see they had Snowboard Cross State Finals happening on one of the runs.  Luckily it wasn't a run we typically go down, so it was no big deal.  The rest of the runs were empty!  We skied until lunchtime, grabbed lunch on the patio outside, and then rushed to get Evan off to his snowboarding lesson.

Evan did so great on the snowboard for his first time!  His instructor said he's a natural.  He decided to keep snowboarding the rest of the afternoon.  We even tried a chair lift ride and deemed it a success.  We hit the road around 3:30pm and all of us were exhausted!  Evan caught a few winks in the car on the way home.  Pizza, hot showers, and a movie were a great way to end the night.

Saturday Scott and I got an unexpected date night!  The kids were invited over to Nana and Pops' house to spend the night and go sledding.  Scott and I took advantage of being kid free and went to the Plymouth Ice Festival.  It was a little crowded in parts so we grabbed some growlers to go from Arbor Brewing and picked up dinner at Clare's St. Louis Kitchen to eat at home.  We watched Murder Mystery on Netflix with Adam Sandler.  It was a fun evening!

We went back to the Ice Festival on Sunday to meet up with Scott's parents and the boys.  It was crowded again, so we showed them our favorites.  We got home and Scott started the painting project in the kitchen while I hung out with the boys and Luna.  We enjoyed spaghetti, meatballs, and salad for our Valentine's Day dinner.  Per tradition, we also did our chocolate fondue in the evening and read books together.  

Today, Scott continued painting the kitchen while I kept the boys entertained.  They both had playdates.  Sean went to Corey's house and we had Nick over to play and sled with Evan.  Sean had his book club zoom meeting this evening where he had his free pizza from Jets and discussed, "Restart" by Gormon Korman.  I got the call tonight that I have a snow day tomorrow so I'll get to stay home with Scott and the kids who are still on mid-winter break.  I'm grateful for my extended mid-winter break!