where c got the worlds most brillant valentine (for those who live in cold weather - it's a pack of tissues!!!)
But anyway, two big stories for this week. First, Saturday night we used a gift certificate I had gotten as a going away present from my old work to take the girls on a sleigh ride dinner excursion. It was WAY fun.
And then we followed it up on Sunday by heading up to the Ranch where there is a serious amount of snow.
(this is what the side of their driveway looks like...turns out it also makes an excellent slide)
Variations on the "winter" theme for this week's update.
M's still singing
C likes to cheer M on while skiing:
For those who watch the video with sound, I feel obliged to call out that I had never met the man you hear cheering like crazy. M has been paired with his daughter (also named Sarah) all season so they had met m during drop off/pick up, but somehow we had always missed each other. I felt obliged to introduce myself after taking the video :) Turns out Sarah will be going to the same school as M next year, so we're hoping they'll stay buddies. I just love how loudly they cheered.
We had a pretty awesome second half of last week. The girls got to come with me to book club. Why? Because my friends (who don't have kids but love mine) bought this:
Yup. They now have a bounce house. In there basement. It's amazing.
The girls bounced their little hearts out and then crashed with the puppy to watch cartoons while adults talked books :)
Then what fun we had this weekend! For the first time all year all four of us went out to the hill Saturday morning. We took the gondola up RIGHT past where they were setting up for the FIS big air competition that was going to take place later that afternoon.
Hopped on the lift to the green run.
And then let the girls run
which was SHOCKING to both Alex and I because we were under the impression that M didn't know how to ski. Turns out we were wrong. Go figure. We quickly adjusted plans and hopped on a lift to the blue runs.
And had some fun that way too.
Wanting to save M's legs for her actual lesson in the afternoon Alex hung back with M in the lodge for a big and C and I went to explore a bit - finding a bit of wind a little higher up the mountain.
but all and all reasonable conditions and much fun to be had. Especially when we could watch some of the big air atheles qualify after we wrapped for the day.
In case you haven't caught it before - here's an example of what we saw (this is during the finals but we saw this guy qualify - it was crazy): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AjBSbLsNyMc
Big event so far this week has been parent teach conferences for C tonight. She's doing awesome. Crazy improvement since the beginning of the year and above benchmarks across the board. And awesome parent teach conference for all involved :) Plus we got to be in the school so could check out some of her artwork:
which got even cooler when I saw the backstory online:
On the M side of the house looking at daycare pictures apparently she turned 16 without telling anyone. Must have been right after she learned to ski...
Since last week C was a spider in the 1st grade musical about bugs.
She chose not to have a speaking part for this one, but definitely knew all the songs and dance moves, and clearly enjoyed being up there :)
It snowed some more but colt's enthusiasm for fetch was undeminished.
The sun finally came out Sunday, and even though it was only 30 degrees it felt so awesome to be outside M and I went up to join Alex as he waited for C to be done with Ski lessons.
Alex found an awesome chain for his new office downstairs...
...and the girls somehow found aardvark and lemur and started carrying them around again. Between those two and Colt's hedgehog I think we've officially cemented our status as the crazy people who refuse to buy teddy bears and dog bones.
At least colt will pose nicely for a picture now a days. That last one is definitely in the running for next year's holiday card.
Big news from UT since last Tuesday is definitely the snow. At the end of last week we had our first real storm of the season dumping about a foot, leading to a race to build a snowman before dark...
Followed by many fun powder adventures up at the ranch over the weekend.
On Saturday night C and I had a picnic in our bedroom...
...in order to stay out of the way of our finish carpenter who worked ALL day, but finished!
We're SO excited to be able to finally finish moving in downstairs (and to get the darn dumpster out of our side yard).
C and I braved the holiday weekend crowds and managed to both park and eat breakfast before her lesson on Sunday.
And all that fun was followed up by another 18 inches of snow on Monday.
All and all an awesome couple of days, leading to some very tired pups last night :)
Happy Tuesday! Having just completed day 10 of the new job I've feeling much more optimistic that we will in fact find a groove again :) Some awesome videos to share from the last week.
Over the weekend we went over to watch some football at a friend's house after skiing. It's so fun to see C play Old Maid with two of my adult friends. Even better, we decided that instead of "old maid" we were going to call it "lady boss" and the person who was left with that single card was the winner. The future is definitely bright :)
Sunday M and I went to hang out with my friend Kate and her daughter Piper for a bit. M LOVED being the big one for a while.
(yes those are matching bows you see in that video)
C and M continue to be awesome together, most of the time. One of my favorite moments from the last week was crashing this party.
