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."

Oh tanenbaum, oh tanenbaum

Traditionally the day after Thanksgiving Lisa makes me put up the Christmas tree. She is very adamant about this, something Mark can attest to. This year she decided that it would be fun to cut our own tree down, so we found a tree farm a little north of us and drove up with the truck. With the kids bundled up and rosy-cheeked we walked between the rows of balsam and douglas fir with two different deer stands in sight. I worried not about the deer stands even though it was the WI gun season, because if those teenagers in the slasher movies are protected by a dim flashlight then certainly I could protect my little troop of lumberjacks with the saw I borrowed from the owner. We choose a nice shaped 6 foot balsam pine and dragged it back to the truck (the only thing I have had to drag all week). I did most of the cutting although Sophia also had a good attempt at lumberjacking. She also helped me drag it back to the truck, during this time Merrick was practicing for a new world record of glove removal, and I am a little surprised that he didn't have chaffing from the number of times his gloves were on and off.
With the tree home and decorated, Sophia subjected Merrick to some story time while she was wearing her 'teacher shoes." This is why I try to find outdoor activities for the kids.
Saturday morning we drove around some dirt roads in the Oconto county forest and Sophia donned a blaze coverall and ran behind the truck just like the other guy we passed was doing with his dogs. After 2 days in the house both Sophia and I thought this was a wonderful idea.

It's a Ringer

Pretty low key weekend even by our standards. Lisa is heading out around noon on Sunday and will not be back until Wednesday. As she is in the "morning parent" much of the weekend has been used to figure out how I am going to drop of the kids in the morning and still make it to work on time--the conclusion is that I will not. At any rate on Friday night we raged against mother nature shook our fists in defiance, donned out rain coats and took a walk in the rain (yes this all sounds more dramatic than the 20 minute walk really was). On Saturday Sophia and I spent a little time indoors at the grocery store, ringing the bell for the salvation army. Even though it was early in the season I think it was hard for people to fight against the double dose of guilt; red kettle and a cute girl. It was good for Sophia too as it was her job to tell all the adults in an audible voice "Merry Christmas." Merrick and Sophia spread grass seed, that will never germinate, on the leveled off mulch pile that used to be our stump. This pile was considerably larger than first estimated and was near 3 cubic yards of mulch dirt mix. I don't think it will be necessary to add any additional mulch to the flower beds next spring. There were plans to have an accompanying photo of Sophia in her red apron, bell and Santa's hat alas gang aft agley.

This evening we will be back at the hockey rink for Sophia's practice, she is #3 on the Orange team. Fear not you will all see as much of her practice as I will, as Merrick needs a lot of attention during practices.

Timber

Well the yard had five large trees and then there were only four. We had to cut down one of the large silver maples (Acer saccharinum--I can't use that tidbit of knowledge very often). The tree had a bark inclusion at the base of a trunk that was comprised of five large beams. The lumberjack spent the last two days here cutting up the tree and will finish up the clean up and stump presumablely tomorrow. The tree was a little bit like the Silversteins giving tree. It gave us shade and privacy in the summer as well as hiding places for tag and perches for the song birds. Now most of it has been carted away. I did split up about four wheelbarrow loads for camp fires and smores. You can see in the picture that the tree is gone and the back yard 'park' is a little more open. We will give some thought about what type of tree to plant in its place over the winter--or consider leaving it grassy for our soccer and kickball games in the back yard. As an interesting note the picture of Sophia on the stump also shows one large beam/trunk of the tree remaining---that is the beam that was cracked but the lumberjack left it for the end.

A very "Sweet" weekend

Halloween is easily going to rank in the upper three holidays for kids. You get to go door to door and collect candy. This is also when even the youngest of children begin to realize that their parents are liars--a trend that is likely to last them into their late teens. Parents continually tell their offspring, "don't talk to strangers, don't take candy from strangers, strangers are bad people" then of course we as parents ruin all of these good sense precautionary warnings in one fell swoop of Halloween. Where kids go to random houses just because they have lights on and collect gobs of candy. These strangers give them candy even if there are partially decomposed skeletons hanging from the trees in front yard. At any rate it was a very good Halloween weekend for the kids. Their grandparents came over to trick or treat with them and we were all grateful for the unseasonably warm October weather. The kids made a haul on the candy, probably about 8-10 pounds between the two of them. Merrick could barely carry his pumpkin bucket and had to lean heavily to one side as he carried it. Bob and Nancy also got to join in the season with a little nostalgia and instruction for sophia as to how to trade candy with your siblings to get the best deal.
On Saturday we played around with a new wood stove and we cooked some eggs and hot chocolate on the stove in the back yard. Later in the day we went for a small hike on a ski trail on the edge of town and saw two deer, multiple scrapes and rubs and three of the biggest garter snakes that Dad or I can recall seeing. Bob spotted the first one as Merrick stumbled off the trail and almost landed on the poor snake in its ectothermic stupor that the cool weather had brought. Mom chased Sophia down the board walk and Bob tried to hide behind trees along the trail until Sophia pushed him out of the way so she could hide--apparently she was unable to find another tree as suitable in the woods as the one that grandpa was already behind.

Sunday was a recoup and rake day day as Merrick and I cleaned up the back yard and then spread all the leaves in the garden to breakdown for next years vegetables. Sophia also started hockey, while it is actually an indoor arena it is still enough activity to discuss here. She was a little tentative but did have a friend that she found in the locker room and appear to have fun. She skated pretty well and is excited to go back again next week. Merrick also enjoyed running around like a complete maniac in the large arena space and crashing himself into the glass (there is an elevated viewing area) as if he was checking somebody--this was alternated with just kicking the glass and eating 'stuff' from undr the bleachers.