Baltimore Trip

The kids had a half day on Friday after Kylie's awards ceremony and Valentine's Party.  We headed up to Baltimore for a night in a hotel followed by a day at the National Aquarium.  

We went with a couple of our friends from home and met up with some friends who recently moved to Maryland.  Kylie was so happy to see her friend.

Kylie's Swim Meet

Back at the end of January, Kylie did her first big swim meet for the RAYS, her year round swim team.  These meets are HUGE and very different from summer swim team meets.  No parents are allowed anywhere near the pool deck or swim area.  She got super nervous at her first event and didn't go when they said "go".  After that, a teenager from our summer team stepped up and guided her through her next two events.  She DQed in breast stroke but came in 17th overall in back and it was an 8 and under race so that's pretty good.  I was so proud of her for overcoming that nervousness and getting back in there.  She was super proud of herself, too.  

Awards Ceremony

The kids had their mid year awards ceremony last week.  Will received the Principal's Awards and Perfect Attendance and Kylie received Perfect Attendance.  

Blizzard Day 4

Dad and Will built a sledding ramp together.  Will really lives for these kind of projects so it was nice to see Dad out there working on it with him.  They made a decent sledding track yesterday, but today, they added a jump and an ending ramp so no one crashes into a tree.  

Little Miss Daredevil was all about the speed and air.

Wonder where she gets it from?

The kids just love it when Dad plays with them.  I'm betting everyone will sleep well tonight.  The kids played out there for more than 3 hours.  We still haven't seen a real plow yet.  Our neighbor, who plows for a side job, plowed our street but not the other parts of the neighborhood.  It's still very dicey out there.

Blizzard Jonas of 2016

Well, Winter came.  All at once.  We have between 2 and 3 feet of snow and no snow plows to be seen.  It started snowing on Friday at 10am and snowed until Sunday morning.  Like really, really hard snow.  

It was super windy, too, so there are a lot of drifts that are simply not manageable.  The driveway was like a field of rolling hills.

It is very powdery snow, so it was nice for sledding but not for snowman making.  

The kids taught Tank the command "dig" and she helped them make a ton of igloos out of the mounds of shoveled snow in the driveway.

We went for a walk to see the main road.   There wasn't much to see.  It's still there, but barely.

These pictures aren't really in order.  The clear day was Sunday. The blizzard crazy snow days were Friday and Saturday.  We went out at least 2 times a day.