New Year

 

 The New Year found us celebrating in traditional and not so traditional ways.  The kids through a huge party in the basement and energized on homemade pizzas and sugar and caffeine managed to stay up to great the new year.  We had bangers and clappers and hats and whistles and bubbly spirits and loud music and everything a good party needs.  New Year's morning was greeted with a frat house type

feel.  We all chipped in and it was cleaned up before too long.  Earlier in the week we took a trip to the mall and the oldest two were allowed to wander on their own to buy the things girls buy at the mall, lotions and necklaces.  The rest of us got cookies and all the kids found ways to spend some of their Christmas money. The warm weather followed by a quick drop in temperatures had left the ski trails too icy to use, but we did find time to wax all the skis in preparation of better temps.  The weather has had some nasty wind chills and Ella and Sophia each received a fair dose of frostbite when their balaclavas slipped down.  We found a field near the house to play cut the pie and chased each other around the fresh snow in a variation of tag.  It was a great way to get a little sunshine on a cold day.  Then we also headed over to the park to bust trails through the multistory high phragmities.  Inside the swampy grass the wind was nill and we even took to through the kids into the tall reeds to help bust the trail.  They laughed the whole while and were all completely surprised at how little distance we had actually covered through the grass when we popped out only about a 100 feet from where we went in, even though it was pushing nearly a 45 minute trail breaking session.  The kids rolled around on the ice rink for a while and played their own games before we headed back home for lunch and naps as the vacation dwindled into the remaining hours and we changed our focus back to academics and work.