Bowling

We went bowling today as a "Plan B" activity for a ski/snow-tubing day that got inclement-weathered-out. We don't often visit a bowling alley, even though the kids seem to like it just fine, so this was a fun alternative to the originally scheduled activity -- and for me personally, just maybe a better one as I'm not all that partial to snow and hours out in the cold.

We went with other families who also had been planning to be on PA slopes and we all had a really nice time. Josie bowled a lane over from ours with the teenagers, and apparently won his first two games, and then tanked the last :-) 

I think he's practicing his Rico Suave pose in this photo...

Craig and I bowled with another couple while their children and Johngideon and Montgomery shared the lane adjoining ours. (I will not elaborate on the fact that Montgomery's first trip to the line ended up with her ball bouncing down a lane next to the one on which she was bowling.)

The scoreboard further above shows the amazing final score for Craig, who has not bowled in at least two years, and then probably not for at least two years prior to that, and then the same pattern for at least a decade back. Five strikes and two spares!?! What?

Here's the final outcome of that game.  I am the score at the top :~/ ...

I told Craig afterwards that I'm going to have to choose to sit out competitive games when we're going simply for the social joy of fellowshipping with other families...I'm just too competitive in my heart. I'd much rather simply enjoy chatting and getting to know everyone better, but competitive games really bring out the tiger in me (even if I possess the self control to beat it back from public view).  Craig was not really surprised, as he's always the slightly embarrassed spouse when we've gone to our kids' (well, middle school ages and over) sporting events.  I'm that yelling cheering parent -- loudly proclaiming "encouragement" to hang in there and fight to the end! (But, in my defense, I am never the crazy referee-threatening-obscenity-yelling-parent...I am not THAT guy.) Anyway, I don't like that competitive tiger that rises up on the inside when we're supposedly just having fun, so I think in the future I'll just sit out participation in games played in settings like that.

One of the reasons Craig was so excited about his score was that my mother is an 81-year-old senior citizen bowling aficionado, who has always beaten Craig in every game we've bowled in the nearly two decades we've been married. And even though it's not been that many games, I think it still bruises his pride a little (smile). And it doesn't help that she has, on rare occasion, been known to mail him the paper scorecard from her best games in her senior league (big smile). So, needless to say, he's really looking forward to making sure she sees the scoreboard above sometime in the near future!

I forgot to get a photo before the other teenagers left, so Josie joined in this one for me.

Here's another family we were bowling next to -- I love how these outings let all ages enjoy hanging out together.

We all ate way too much bowling alley fried and greasy foods (french fried, mozzarella sticks, chicken fingers, pizza, hamburgers...) and spent way too many quarters on the junky toy and trinket vending machines (of which there were many), but we all had a good time and left looking forward to the next time at the lanes.  My mother's heart just hopes the college kids are in town for that one.

Much love. Take care.

Snow-walking and snow-snacking

Gommy's idea of snow-walking... and...

...snow-snacking.

Much love. Take care.

Again

We woke up this morning to the scene above...so much for my posts last week celebrating the 74 degree weather! Good thing we enjoyed it while it lasted!

So, since it was yet another snow day and all schools were closed again, Gommy enjoyed an invitation to visit a little friend down the street to play, and she took along the final two really-cool-heart-shaped-cookies-that-came-with-flavored-markers-for-actually-coloring-your-designs-on-them that Auntie Joanne (of course!) had given her...

 ...although it took awhile to walk there...

...because stepping off the path into the snow every 10 feet or so was just too appealing!  :o)

She eventually made it.

Take care. Much love.

Riding Again

Job pulled his bike out of the basement this morning and rode to school for the first time in many months...because...

...it's 74 degrees today...in FEBRUARY! Oh, the joy!

He's dressed a bit roughly because his school is actually closed today, but the Robotics Lab is open and in full swing as his team works to put the finishing touches on their competition robot.

After six weeks of barely seeing him (and really never in daylight), the intense build season is coming to its close and the hard work of many hands and minds gets shipped off on Monday to the team's first competition site, D.C., and then off to Philly after that. I can't wait to share more about this annual winter ritual of Job's...and of all FIRST Robotics teams.

Until I do, check out the website http://www.usfirst.org/roboticsprograms/frc/default.aspx?id=966. It's an amazing program!

Take care. Much love.

A Break in the Weather

This week has been wonderfully mild, compared with the frigid cold of recent months. Maia got home from school yesterday and immediately joined Montgomery on the swings.



 Even taking out the trash was enjoyable...

...maybe...well, at least worth a bit of clowning for the camera...

The only real snow left standing (rather, melting) in the back yard is the poor remnant of the snow fort.

The only problem with wonderful mild weather following significant amounts of snow is muddy swamp effect underfoot. Lots of "take off your shoes, take off your shoes!" as folks come tromping inside...but I'll take it for the glories of a 60-degree February day!

Much love. Take care.

  

The Ice Rink

For several weeks, our family has seen an odd-looking structure in a neighbor's yard. From the street in our vehicle we wondered if it was preparation for a swimming pool, a special grass-fertilization area, a large small animal habitat...we got really creative with our wondering. In the past few days I've noticed that the structure seems to contain a frozen body of water, and correctly supposed we were witnessing the building of a homemade ice skating rink.

Today, as we turned by that corner on our way home, Johngideon yelled out that there was a kid on the ice. I backed up and parked and we sauntered over to see what was what. So, a neighbor I've never met confirmed that indeed the intended creation was to be an ice-skating rink, and that actually, this was not their yard, but they lived a couple of doors down. Turns out her husband grew up in Minnesota, and his father had made him a homemade rink when he was a kid and he wanted to do the same for his kids, but their yard was not flat enough, so the neighbors whose yard we passed daily had agreed to have the rink built in their yard instead, and the project was born.

The men had had a great time building the rink, and adding layers of water until they ended up with a frozen mass. Unfortunately, however, there had been some miscalculations along the way and the rink was not quite level, thus one side had nearly a couple feet of ice, and the other side had barely an inch. No matter to Montgomery and Johngideon who were delighted to be lifted onto the thick side for a few fun moments of slip-sliding around while the sun beat down and we could practically see the valiant creative attempt melting before our eyes. After weeks of frigidly cold weather, we're in for near 60's this weekend, and our neighbor thinks the poor miscalculated rink will probably not make it through.

What a neat idea! Cheers and more cheers to our clever and creatively adventurous neighbors!

...Our back yard is pretty large and flat...

I've asked Craig to build an ice-skating rink next winter. Can you believe...he's actually considering the idea! More on that in 12 months...

Take care. Much love.

First Real Snow of the Season

On Wednesday morning we woke to the news that most of the schools in the area were closed due to weather. As we went to the windows in surprise, we saw that Tuesday night we'd had a sneak attack of snowfall. Only rain had been predicted, but temperatures dropped so we ended up with several inches of snow instead...and it was still falling that morning. Needless to say, the children were all excited and thrilled (age is no determination of excitement and thrillation when it comes to a snow day!) We spent the day relaxing with a big breakfast, enjoying time with house guests who were visiting, and watching the kids have a great time outside. Craig took Josiah and Johngideon to sled on a nearby hill dubbed "Suicide Hill" with neighbor friends Emmett and Liam.

While they were there, their little sister Mara hung out with Montgomery.

The two girls spent a long time outside, surprisingly right after each of them had eaten big bowls of fresh snow! My insides would have been way too cold at that point...aaahhh, youth! They "made" trees and snowangels.

When it was time to come in, the two of them delightedly brought in two more big bowls of snow...grass- flavored this time. ;o)

That evening, as everyone was warming up drinking hot cocoa, we watched the next wave of snowfall hit our area...the one that had actually been predicted. It was beautiful because this was the heavy kind of snow that falls something like 2-3 inches per hour. Auntie Joanne ended up spending the night after she'd stopped by for dinner, because the snowfall came so fast and furious that driving conditions deteriorated unexpectedly rapidly and it was not safe for her to make the drive home. (We heard on the news the next morning that so many people got stranded on the highways heading out of town after work; many people spent the night in their cars and others just left their cars and walked to public places for the night; city hotels were sold out with some folks actually spending the night in lobbies too.)

Maia had a flight out early Thursday morning for a dance conference and she and I spend the evening -- no, actually all night :o) -- twisting her fro into the most beautiful individual twists...and checking the airline website to see if her flight was delayed or cancelled. Surprisingly, even with the 10 inches of snow we got that evening, her flight was scheduled to leave on time. There are no hair photos to post here because, needless to say, the wee hours of Thursday morning were spent in a flurry of finishing packing (not fun when you're on crutches!), and for Craig and Job, getting the walks and street and cars shoveled out enough to make the drive to the airport (thank God for the menfolk!). She and the other delighted travelers are now in sunny California enjoying 80 degree weather!

While I am not a personal fan of snow, having grown up in Charleston, SC, where I doubt our city government even owned a snow plow, I do have a high appreciation for the beauty of seeing the world covered in a blanket of sparkling white. Thursday morning's trees from our back window were delightfully lovely and standing there soaking up all that beauty really fed my soul.

Thank you, God.

 His artistry has no equal.

Later that day, I did the previously unthinkable and joined my crew for an hour or so of sledding on another nearby hill (not so "suicidal") that was better sized for Montgomery to enjoy the experience as well. When I say I joined them for sledding, that actually means I watched them sled from my picturing-taking post in front of the big tree at the foot of the hill (the one another mother leaving when we arrived warned me could make for a rough finish to a really fast not-so-well-controlled sled run). (I later dubbed this the hill's "pee tree" due to all the areas of suspicious looking yellow snow behind it!)

It was Gommy's first real sledding experience...

...turns out she LOVES sledding!

...she even enjoyed the wipe-outs!...

...and she and Johngideon, Josiah and Job just had a great time.

 

 

  

A little ramplet had been built midway down one run, so Craig beefed it up a bit and it provided a fun moment of airborne action on the way down the hill.

 It was fun, until a landing took out one of our disks!

This was perfect snowball and snowman snow, heavy, thick and wet...so we couldn't resist a bit of snowball fighting. Job is clearly the most skilled at this endeavor, so we ended up needing to have our team division be something like everyone else against Job!

No photos of the real fight because I was in the fray too! It was fun, but we sure missed our Maia.

Johngideon spent some time creating a new run down the hill just for fun. Gommy spent some time just lying in the snow saying "I'm tired," and so finally we all headed back to the van, cold and dripping wet, exhausted and exhilarated. We grabbed a couple of movies on the way home, and while I peeled off and hung all of our wet layers to dry, Job and Josie walked to our neighborhood restaurants to grab pizzas and Josiah's favorite: a meatball marinara sub. I called Johngideon in (can you believe he spent another half hour playing outside with neighbor friends after we got home from the hill!) and we all sat cozy under blankets in the den, devouring pizza and watching Despicable Me for the first time. Great movie, by the way...and a lot more reasonably priced at Redbox family pricing than family pricing at the theatres! :o) 

What a great day! This southern gal is actually grateful for interestedly accepting of our cold, snowy winters.

Thought I'd end the post with a bit of Job's tree art...this one is called "We're going sledding but I'm waiting for my southern-raised 'snover-cautious' mother to finish bundling up my younger siblings and that takes WAY too long!"

Take Care. Much Love.