Midwest Winter

Well.....we are already sneaking up on the end of February and this is my first post of the year.  Yikes!  Our winter thus far has been full of work travel for me and Rich and school, swimming, ice skating and gymnastics for the kids.  Luckily our winter has been pretty mild (probably because I prepared myself with new winter boots and coat) but that means we haven’t even been sledding yet this year.

We spent New Years in Nashville at the Opryland resort!  Fun with friends and indoor water parks.

Rich and I finally rode the Ferris wheel at Navy Pier.  I’ve lived her practically 20 years and I had never ridden it so Rich got us tickets for our anniversary.  He’s a keeper!




The boys are learning to ice skate.  Their parents can’t teach them and skating is a common birthday party option up here with all the hockey kids.  Needless to say...they aren’t naturals so they may be taking this class again.


We have had one snow this year that allowed Hazel to make a mini snow man.


I road tripped to Indiana with the kids for one of Zach’s swim meets.  Being new to the sport, we learned a lot at this race.  Biggest lesson......be sure your swimmer checks in before hitting the pool deck!  We made the best of the weekend and cozied up at the hotel for a movie night.




Cub Scouts has the boys building pinewood derby cars and racing again this year.  They both did pretty well!

This guy got glasses!  He just needs them for reading but he has a whole new confidence when he wears them.


We have made a few trips to the kids museum (thanks Nana)!

Hazel has made her way around the block on the tricycle several times now.


And she clearly really really wants a dog!  Majority of her classmates filled in the first blank with “mommy” but not Hazel.  She loves dogs.


And finally Zach worked really hard to raise funds for his swim team.  Thank you to all of you that donated and supported him in his efforts.  He swam 102 lengths of the pool in 1 hour at his team Swimarathon.  We were really proud of him for setting a goal and going after a challenge and he was really excited!


This weekend is filled by another swim meet but I think after this one life will settle a little.  Maybe?  At least until baseball and soccer season start up?  Swim lessons, gymnastics and scouts will keep us going along with some work travel mixed in.  This phase is life certainly is busy!  Fingers crossed that I remember to post an update next month.  My goal is once a month.  One day maybe I’ll even print all these posts out.