Smell that?.....Smells Like Canada

The weekend was a lot of time spent indoors, like everyone else we had a lot of snow and nasty-cold winds. We did play in the backyard a little bit on Saturday. Played some field hockey on the tundra, no actual ice but the shoveled off grass works pretty well for boot hockey and tennis balls. There was enough snow to also break out the snow shoes for a romp around the back yard. Sophia's snow shoes fit her well and we found out that Sophia's snow shoes don't fit Merrick that well--however he was convinced that he was uber cool when he had them on--even if he didn't say as much. Sunday started off by feeding DVD's into the TV like Ritalin at an elementary school but then ended with some ice time for both kids. While it is Sophia's practice, Merrick too brings his stick and helmet, and loves to crash into the glass. This weekend was no different, although he seemed to get more compliments on his helmet this time than normal. Trucking two kids across a desolate parking lot to go to a Sunday night hockey practice did indeed seem very Canadian.
Sophia (orange #3) doesn't have an actual team but as the one picture shows apparently the yellow team used a textbook strategy of mini-mites--skate towards the net and then slide at the goalie (Sophia was the goal tender). They rotated her out of net and she is really skating well and even had a nice backhand goal. The day ended much as it had started with TV on, although the evening was permeated by the temperature induced requirement of the chicken noodle soup--with homemade noodles

From Snow Man to No man

Saturday was great weather for playing outside with the temps in the low 30s. lisa and the kids built a snow man. Initially Sophia and I made two snow balls that were too large to hoist onto one another. This lead to two snowmen as I could not convince her that we should just make a snowman that is taking a nap. In the end she enlisted the help of her brother and mother to deck out a full sized snow man complete with scarf and carroted nose. Merrick also was able to get some 'ice time' in with his hockey stick. What a difference a day makes as it started to rain Saturday night and judging by the amount of water in our sleds we must have gotten a quarter inch or more rain. By Sunday morning, the ice rink was gone as was the majority of the snowman's face. The rain has continued all day, and everything is just sloppy enough to make the outdoors uninteresting for the likes of my little troopers. Lisa entertained them with baking and frosting of sugar cookies, a project that burnted up most of the afternoon as well as the kitchen counter space. The weather for tomorrow is predicting an arctic blast that is going to freeze all of the melt water and wreeck havoc on the streets--we are going to try to get in Sophia's hockey practice before that next change in weather befalls and befouls us.

there's No day like a Snow day

The official record will show only a little over 6 inches, however in our yard it was much more like seven or eight inches of snow. Regardless of the details, all metrics indicated that the snow fall of late Monday and early Tuesday warranted a snow day for both Sophia and me (as well as countless others). While my work day was called off Monday night, Sophia's anticipation dragged out until the early morning hours before her snow day was proclaimed. I recall my own youth, listening to the radio in the dinning room for the school closing updates every fifteen minutes and inevitably missing the alphabetized schools because of someone talking. That has all changed as now you just pull up the local media website and find your school, or as Lisa did just sign up to have the TV station email you if your school is closed. At any rate Merrick, Sophia and I had a day in the snow. Our actual outdoor time is limited due to Merrick's unwillingness to recognize the benefit of wearing mittens, but we still got a couple of hour long romps in the wonderland that was our backyard. I even convinced Sophia to take a break from working on her multi-colored snow mound to shovel out the back of my truck. Merrick eventually gave up on getting the shovel to himself and became content to push his dump truck around and carry his hockey stick around and continually show it to me, just in case I forgot about his new prized posession. He has also taken to wearing his hockey helment when ever a game is on the TV--this is the old white hockey helmet that must be about 40 years old. We did occupy our inside time with naps and baking bannanna bread. You will notice in th pictures that even though it is after eleven Merrick is still in his pajamas. Lisa was not impressed with my fatherly fashion decision to keep Merrick in PJ's all day--I however thought it was great for napping and when outside he was covered by his jacket and bibs. After I had both kids using Crisco and flour to prepare the bread pans I didn't really see any reason to change him into a new clothes for the rest of the day. We shoveled, we ate, we napped--It was a great snow day. I just don't understand why snow days always caused so much parental stress when I was young--I think it was mark that lost the key in the snow :-)

Hush you Muskies

Well winter was here for even the most ardent supporters of autumn. With about 6 to 8 inches of snow on the ground and winds recorded at 30 mph gusts on Saturday there is just no denying that December 21 is not really the first day of winter. Friday night we played in the back yard which really means I drag the kids over a three foot jump we made of piled up snow. Of course the real problem of piling up snow in your back yard around here is that when you have exposed grass in your back yard, people tend to give you ten dollars, leave their cars and walk over to 'the field." By Saturday the kids had bored of the bunny hill and we drove a couple of blocks from the house to a larger hill behind an elementary school. Even in the gusts there were about 30 people milling around while the hill was not large it was large enough for about a 200 yard run out. Merrick would barely stop when he would start saying more, although his voice was ridicously muffled by the 4 feet of scarf wrapped around his head in the same fashion as the kid brother from "Christmas story." Merrick still has the good life and gets to sled both down and up hills--Sophia on the other hand has reached the rite of passage and is required to walk up the hill. The wind was enough of a factor that we were only out there for a little over an hour.
Much of the weekend has been dealt with the Sophia's growing excitement at the small number of wrapped gifts that are starting to arrive under the tree. She is also very concerned, and to my chagrin continually asks Lisa, as to why there are not any presents for Mom under the tree. Lisa just replies "ask your father."