February Vacation

We decided to take a little trip during February vacation to see the Simmons family and visit the sights in DC.  To make the trip affordable – we drove. Have I mentioned that we are excellent road trippers?  We are. Since we have it down to a science now- I am trying to shake things up a little.  In the past, the usual goal is to get somewhere as fast as possible-which is nice but you miss some interesting things along the way so I am trying to find interesting places to stop along our road trips now.  This time it was Hershey park. Of course, since it was cold out, the amusement park was closed but Chocolate world was open and that was just perfect. Look at these happy faces to greet us!

We didn’t spend too much time- maybe a little over an hour. We went through the mini-tour, got our free chocolate – did a little browsing, saw a few more sights and then ate more chocolate!

  And once the fun was done- it was time to get back in the car for the last stretch of the road trip.

It was a perfect break.

Valentines Day

There was lots of love on Valentines Day!

The Beach

What to do when it is in the 40’s and an early release day? 

Hit the beach of course!

 

There were lots of fun treasures to be found after the big Nemo storm.

Ocean air and big spaces.

Good things for a young boy and his mom.

Before & After

Much, much better!

Happy Valentines Day!

It’s back!

Ahhh..yes.

The good ‘ol construction vest has been making regular appearances again.

It’s much less annoying and much more endearing this time.

Baby it’s cold outside

During January when the highs were barely hitting double digits and the nights were in the negatives- we tried to make the best of it and decided a science experiment was in order. We decided to to see how long it would take different balloons to freeze when placed in different areas.

Step 1: Was it cold enough? 

That would be an affirmative.

Step 2: Fill up the balloons. Add food coloring to make them pretty. Cause really..isn’t that what this is about?

Step 3: Carry outside carefully.

Step 4: Proper placement is very important. Mistakes will happen.

Repeat steps 2,3 & 4

   

Step 5: Completely forget you are doing this experiment and do not check them for days. (We are good with experiment  protocol.)

Step 6: Brave the chilly weather to go see what happened.

  

Step 7:  Show off the end result.

Step 8: Treat them to ride.

Our conclusion: It was cold outside. They froze. It was fun.  :)

Post Nemo

What to do with a free Sunday afternoon after a blizzard?

I know Connelly took McKenna skiing.

Carrie said she and Heath took the girls ice skating.

We saw on Facebook that others went sledding.

Not us –no way.

We found the warmest, most humid place we could and pretended we were on a tropical vacation.

Alec and I, we went to our happy place. And happily walked out smelling like our favorite smell.

Nothing beats eau de chlorine.

(Erik likes swimming but not as much as Alec and I)

NEMO

It’s a dumb name for a storm. Just sayin’.

They predicted – and it showed here in southern Maine.

 

On Friday we had a pre-blizzard snow day because of a little storm that was leading the big one. We got about six inches from that one.  It was enough to go play in it with friends. It was cold- maybe 12 and the wind was blowing but it wasn’t too bad. OK maybe it was. Burrrrrr.

We decided to have a blizzard party at our house. It’s nice to have neighbors who are our friends or rather it’s nice to have friends who are also our neighbors. Either way. Erik had to work so he said he would get the Chinese take out for us. Alec and I did a little prep work.

Blizzards are so much better with friends! The kids were in their jammies- we were all cozy-hanging out –eating/munching, talking and mostly laughing.

We did put the kids in the bounce house for a while to get some ‘beans’ out and then they got really cozy.(Ben is in there!)

 

Then the boys took all the blankets out of the linen closet (god bless them) so we made them a fort. With the radiant heat- it was really cozy in there. A perfect blizzard spot.

2 kids, 2 dads and all Alec’s stuffies fit in this fort. All was well and good until Alec started tooting under there. It became a stink house. Which, of course brought on tons of giggles.

Good times. 

The next day was snow, snow, snow and more snow.

And when it finally stopped there was over 30 inches of snow in the ground.

  I think the above picture is the best for showing how deep it truly was. Higher than the snow blower. It took Erik 4 hours to clear the driveway on Saturday and another hour on Sunday to finish. A normal storm takes him 1 hour. It was a long cold night for them although Alec only lasted for a little more than an hour which was fine since it was still windy and bitterly cold. Like in the teens without the wind chill.

Shania was not happy about the situation either.

But she was very pleased with the fort.

And then on Sunday morning. A little more clean up of Nemo because don’t ya know… as soon as Erik was done snow blowing Saturday night the snow plow came by and pretty much blocked us in.

A beautiful day –look at that blue sky but still so bitterly cold.

Bye Bye Nemo. Don’t come back now-ya hear?