Day 3 in Porcupine Mtns

Day 3 was the second day the guys went snowboarding. No more blue "easy" runs for these guys...they went straight for the black diamond run. Reeve was too quick down the run for me to be ready with the camera. They'd all go up on the chair lift, I'd go in and hang out in the lodge or take a walk and the next thing I knew Reeve was down the hill and waiting for Tom & Kyle. Or I'd see Reeve coming down the hill, but by the time I got close enough to take a picture he was stopped. He did really well though!

I thought both Reeve and Kyle mastered the art of "braking" with their snowboards really well.

By the end of the day the kids were exhausted in the heat of the lodge.

It gave Tom a chance to come down the hill once by himself.

Too Much Stuff

Wow! This is an awesome little 20 minute video.
Words to live by, that's for certain!

Story of Stuff

I watched this with both Reeve and Kyle and they loved it! Reeve was so inspired that he said he didn't want to get any more toys, and Kyle said he would only watch one 30min (it's educational...no commercials) TV show a day.

Informative Articles on Children's Nutrition

A good friend of mine is a homeschooling Mom with a PhD in Nutrition. She just started to write some articles on children's nutrition for a website called Helium.

I thought both articles were very informative and insightful.

This is the link: http://www.helium.com/user/show_articles/384496

She's experimenting with this type of journalism for the first time and was interested in feedback.

Day 2:Snowboarding at the Porcupine Mtns, MI

After cross-country skiing we checked into our little kitchenette suite at the Sunshine Motel. We made some rice and guacamole and then we went to sleep. We woke up the next day kinda late...it doesn't start to get daylight in the Upper Penisula until around 8:30am! We gathered our gear together, got dressed, made food for the day, and headed out to the ski lodge.

It was so nice skiing here. The weather was perfect and there weren't any crowds.

Tom and the boys barely had to wait to get onto the chair lift.

It's harder (I think) to get onto the chair lift with a snowboard than it is with skiis, but these guys had it down to a science.

Since Tom's goofy foot (right foot forward) he's teaching Reeve and Kyle how to snowboard goofy foot. It looks harder to walk one-fitted in the board when you're doing it goofy foot, but by the end of the day the kids were getting pretty good at it. They all enjoyed the chair lift ride, especially Kyle.

They started riding the "blue" slope which is easiest run after the "green - very easy" runs.

After a couple of rides down this hill Reeve was really bored. He always came down the hill at least 15 minutes before Kyle and Tom did and he was itching to ride the black diamond run.

He went along riding the "easy" run all day with them the first snowboarding day. On the second day they mainly rode the black diamond run. It turned out it was actually easier for Reeve and Kyle to ride the steep slopes than it was for them to ride their boards on flatter runs. The steeper runs were also less crowded, which worked out really well for learning.

Tom had quite the little rope system for training Kyle. Actually there were quite a few kids there(all on skiis) attached to a parent with straps. It saved Kyle from going too fast and out into the woods. Reeve was beyond the straps and Tom couldn't get him to slow down. He zipped downt the hills as fast as he wanted to, but I will note that I KNOW Reeve was very careful. He doesn't like to get too risky.

Nordic Skiing in the Porcupine Mountains, MI

A couple of weeks ago we traveled North about 6 hours and spent a long weekend in the Upper Penisula of Michigan right on Lake Superior.

The ski lodge (pictured in the background) was very cozy. It had a great view of the slopes and two very warm fireplaces. Early in the morning families pile in and grab their favorite long table. They leave all their lunch gear and belongings on the tables and then go out and ski. It was really cool to see that most everyone brown bagged it in the lodge. Some families were very organized and brought skewers to cook their food (okay it was meat) on the indoor fires.

When we got there we went on a cross country ski trail and ended up skiing for about 5 hours and traveling about 6 miles. Reeve was the trail blazer and was constantly having to wait for us all to catch up to him.

Kyle was a real trooper because the poor kid kept falling down and it was a very difficult trail we were on. We lumbered up steep inclines and edged down even steeper trails through a very thick evergreen forest.

Foggy Last Day of 2007

The last day of 2007 was a really foggy day. It was surreal to see so much whiteness everywhere. It was very peaceful and beautiful and one of those days where you don't miss the sun.

Fun in the Backyard

This is what we did for Christmas. We had fun cross-country skiing around our house and sledding down our big hill.

Catching Up

I'm still working on organizing my pictures. I had hoped to have some pics picked out to print to send along in a Valentine's Day card...since we didn't get a Christmas letter out this year...but it's not looking like I'll be ready to send out V day cards either.
Probably in about 5 posts from now I'll be posting pics of our mini vacation up north. We just got back from the Upper Penisula of Michigan on Lake Superior for a ski trip to the Porcupine Mountains. The weather was perfect, the snow was perfect, and Reeve and Kyle learned how to snowboard on some black diamond runs!

Snowy Winter

I don't know how I got so behind on posting...I think I was uber frustrated about not getting the video thing to work. I mean this is the age of u-tube you'd think I'd be able to figure out how to upload a silly little 20second video from my camera, but no I couldn't figure it out.

These pictures are like a month old! I

Reeve Lost his 5th Tooth

I've been reading the kids Harry Potter for about 3 hours every evening...no kidding at least 3 hours a day! Well there's not much to do from 7-10pm at night, and they can't get enough of it. Kyle now doesn't go anywhere around the house without his wand, and he's constantly performing Cheering Charms on Reeve or trying to disarm me with an exhuberant Expelaramus when I'm asking him to clean up his toys. We're on book 5, and the other night, during a particularly gripping part of the book, Reeve flicked out his tooth with his tongue. It really startled us all!

He's always happy to lose a tooth!

You might have heard that we had a blizzard here this weekend. Even this morning there were still flurries flying through the air. It dumped over A FOOT of snow again in one night! It's worse than that for us because we're on the ridge top and we get a lot of deep snow drifts from all the wind.
Santa's worried...can you see the ridge of snow behind him? I can tell you it's above my knee!

Snowy December

Well we were happy to drive home from Florida and Tennessee with very good weather. When we crossed over into Wisconsin there was no snow on the ground, but by the time we came closer to our house there was an inch of snow still on the ground. The kids were thrilled to come home to snow.

The weekend that we came home it snowed about 8 inches total. Before I could unpack Reeve and Kyle first insisted that I decorate for Christmas..."It's snowing already and we don't even have our tree up!" They enthusiastically pointed out. Then they could take it no longer and HAD to go outside in the snow...that took some more diggig to find all of their winter gear (gloves, hats, boots, snowpants, etc...). Reeve knew where his snowboard was, so he was glad to get that ready.

Kyle had a snowboard too, but his boots were too big and he kept losing them on the way down.

He's such a goof

Hobe Sound Thanksgiving

We celebrated Thanksgiving this year at Tom's Mom's house.

It was quite a feast

This is Lauren's (Tom's neice) boyfriend John helping to carve the Turkey with Barbara's friend Pam.

The kids were very well behaved.

The sun must have been in their eyes for this pic...they do look like cousins!

And they get along sooo well :-)

Deck Demolition at Ken's in Tampa

After our day of fun at Busch Gardens we spent the next day helping my brother take down his deck. The deck needed to come down, so the building contractor's could start work on Ken & Erin's new addition.

The building contractor's had to design a special foundation to protect their neighbor's Florida Oak Tree.

Ken and Tom made a good team, and the deck came down fairly easily and quickly.

It's going to be really cool! They'll have a new bedroom and bathroom, bigger kitchen, and a laundry room.

Here's a pic of Ken in the front of his house. It's a really nice house in the historic district of Tampa.