Animals Alive

The Friday before President's day, the weather was supposed to be wonderful. So a group of us met up at Frying Pan Park - which combines a park with a farm - to play, see animals, and picnic. The weather was slightly chillier than expected, but we had a great time. The girls really love to see the farm animals and their friends.

So excited to see the sheep!

Audrey petting a HUGE pig


The girls thought that this pig was funny cause it had mud up to its knees. I think that this was the first time that they realized that pigs lived in mud.

An attempt at a group shot in front of a cow. They are actually getting better about staying still for photos. Pictured: Max, Lorelei, Keira, Audrey, Elisa, Brooke, Maddy, Zac. Not pictured are Katie and Molly and Nathan and those in the strollers: Ian, Bennett, and Sloane.

Animals Dead

President's Day Weekend, we decided to take the girls into DC to see the dinosaur bones. Unfortunately we didn't really think through the whole holiday issue and so we were quite surprised to find that it was packed! We have been to the museum once before and the girls were not overly enthused about the bones. However, since then they have fallen in love with the tv show Dinosaur Train. (as an aside, they frequently pretend to be T-Rexes around the house. The funniest part is that they will tell me that they are eating meat from the meat tree. apparently they are not 100% clear on where the T-Rex actually got his food from. so funny!) They were much more interested in the bones this time, but Brooke was "scared" of them and was very clingy.

Posing in front of Tank the Triceratops

Mrs. Pteranodon skeleton

Audrey by the wing of a pteranodon

The girls by Buddy the T-Rex

Random bones

Ski Trip

This past week we went on a 3 day ski trip to Wintergreen, VA (the same place that we went for 4th of July). We left after work on Monday and got back around 11 am on Friday. It was lots of fun but very cold!

Did I mention that it was COLD?

Day 1: Girls in Kid Camp with a 1 hour lesson built in. K and D did skiing together and then K back to the condo to read by the fire while D did all of the black slopes. Our skiing was moderately uneventful - with the only exception being my one fall. Which happened to be into the fence at the bottom by the chair lift. Much more embarrassing than painful. I was surprised at how there really was not snow anywhere except on the ski trails (provided by the massive snow making machines that were on constantly) and how icey the slopes were. D says that is just the way it goes on the east coast. The little lesson for the girls did not go that well for Audrey (in her defense she had a very runny nose which does not mix well with cold) but Brooke really caught on quickly and loved it. They went down a MINIATURE hill that was right outside the kids area. The teacher let Darren help out with the lesson in an attempt to get Audrey involved and that worked pretty well. After their camp was over, each of the girls went down the big slope outside our condo (the downside for this place was that there really was not any type of bunny slope for the girls to use. They were on the same green as me!) They liked that a lot - especially riding back up on the chairlift.

We all spent a lot of time looking out the window at the chairlift. The girls liked to guess which way the people would go and whether or not they would fall getting off the chairlift.

At the lesson. First practicing walking with just one ski and then Brooke with both skis on ready to go. Knees bent and arms out in front. (Brooke is always the one in solid pink bibs and Audrey's are the purple pink plaid)

Getting ready to ski with the girls. Basically D snowplowed down the whole mountain and steered the girls. They were like little reindeer in the harness. Obviously D was the only one taking them down the mountain, so there are not any good pictures of that as I was back at the condo with the other.

Day 2: No camp for the girls. Just skiing with D and playing with K. I did ski a couple of times by myself and D went and did the blacks during their nap. I was happier cause it snowed during the night and there was snow everywhere and it was less icy to ski!

The girls after skiing: Brooke "let's go again" and Audrey "it is COLD"

D getting off the ski lift holding Audrey

Getting ready to make the exchange of girls

Just a cute picture of me and Brooke

Audrey being super silly

Day 3: The girls went back to the camp, but this time without the lesson. D and K skied together - until K crashed into a snow (mainly ice) bank and decided that was enough skiing for me. D got to ski the blacks again while I read by the fire. Then D and K went tubing. That was SO MUCH FUN! Though I was totally scared and insisted that we wear our ski helmets while tubing. Needless to say, we were the only ones. After the camp D and the girls skied again.

K at the bottom of the tubing park. Thank heavens there was a little moving sidewalk to get back to the top!

D getting ready to tube solo. We did some as singles and some hooked together as doubles. When you went by yourself you spun around and around. But hooked together you really flew down it!

Favorite part of the trip? The two sets of bunk beds in their room, of course!

I will post videos later!

Sledding

I finally bought a sled. For those of you who are long time readers, you may remember that last year we just put the girls in a plastic bin and used that as a sled. Since we are really not that much of a redneck family, I decided that we really needed to upgrade. So this past weekend we got out and did sledding in our backyard. The girls LOVED it!! and secretly so did their mom and dad. (As an aside, D is wearing those sunglasses cause he had Lasik the day before we did our sledding. It went well!)




Here are Brooke and then Audrey sledding down our hill. I love Audrey's ski bibs - she totally looks like she should be a snowboarder in them.



The girls are pretty adventurous and this is what the sledding looked like a little while into our playing: