Flexiblity for changing Weather

The mild weather continues and other than a freak storm this appears to be a nearly snowless winter. The lack of snow of course means the lack of snow activities and the XC skis, ice fishing gear and sleds are quietly collecting dust as we keep our shoes flexible with hikes and playground equipment. Two weekends ago the kids even gave up on shoes as the temperatures were hovering around 50 and they figured that was warm enough to get their naked toes into the mid-February backyard mud. We have had the occasional slumber party but otherwise the weeks have clicked along rather briskly with gymnastics and Girl scout cookie sales and Saturday morning Soccer. Merrick has started playing games in soccer and tends to be quite good at scoring. He is a ball hog, but in his defense his team of four generally plays 3 goalies and Merrick as the forward. He and I have also started to spend Sophia's gymnastic time in open gym shooting buckets and playing various versions of PIG and HORSE with ever changing rules. Sophia has her Science fair this coming week and has a great project all constructed on Water Loss in Plants. She will present her research on Tuesday and I think she is as excited as I am proud of her work. Her and I also have a Daddy/Daughter dance this weekend and with dinner reservations already made it will assuredly be a wonderful date. We did head over to a nearby park today but that was a short lived adventure as Sophia slipped and bite her lip seriously enough that we needed to come home for some ice and a clean up. She rested and Merrick and I cleaned up the backyard and changed the oil in the truck. Her lip seemingly improved enough to eat up the rest of her Valentine's day candy. One evening last week we were in need of some real summer weather and when the kids wanted to play summer I decided it was a good idea for us to all get our shorts on, turn the furnace up to about 85 and we all put some sunscreen on--even as nice as it is outside a little mock summer is still a nice break. I was sweating like crazy during supper that night and When I commented that it must be close to 90 in the house, Sophia checked the thermostat--"Dad it is 68" Oh, how I loath the heat--my people are not built for heat.