Sunshine & Hoops

This, my friends, is the sun. He was a little difficult to recognize at first because it's been so long since we've seen him. He was a very welcome visitor today, and we are all hoping he will visit again soon.

The temperature got up to 50 degrees! The snow has mostly melted and people were wearing short sleeves and no jackets. You would think we'd hit 85. We went for over 50 days with snow on the ground. That is quite a long time. It's no wonder a little bit of sunshine and blue skies made everyone feel giddy! Sadly, the temps are supposed to fall again tomorrow and snow is in the forecast. I typically like winter, but this has been a very long one.

Despite having 2 games earlier in the day, Danielle couldn't resist playing a little one on one with Dad outside in the sunshine. Today her team won their first game 29-15 and the second game 39-5. Tomorrow they have one more regular game and then hopefully the championship game. Danielle would really like to add a basketball trophy from this season to her collection.

"Education in Every Bite"

How is that for a slogan? Doesn't that make you just want to dig in? A couple of our school buildings gave away these cookies with lunch on President's Day. My school didn't, but I complained until the director brought me a couple bags. I felt a little left out. I mean, who wouldn't want to see the president's face on a cookie?! Sadly, I only had 2 bags, so I couldn't put together our country's entire presidential history.

I heard they didn't taste very good, though, so I wasn't about to try them. Ron, who will eat almost anything, said they taste like dog biscuits. Sure enough, Clara loved them. (She was waiting patiently for me to give her the ok.)

My Date

Ron and Danielle went to watch a college women's basketball game tonight, so I had a date with my son.

We had a very nice evening out. Tyler struggles to fit into the "student" mold, so I feel like he gets beat down so much of the time. Evenings out like this remind me of just how amazing he is...so much more than the kid who exasperates his teachers by refusing to do busywork in class (straight As, mind you). Hopefully evenings out like this remind him that life is so much more than those 7 hours a day he spends trying to fit into the mold. He talked my ear off in the van about a server he's working on. I honestly didn't understand most of what he was talking about, but that's ok. All of that was self-taught, and probably more applicable to his future than showing 4 different ways to divide fractions. (Is it really important to know more than 1 way?!) I love how his eyes dance when he's talking about something that excites him. There is no denying that he is a challenge, but I am so thankful God chose to give him to us. He is such an amazing creation.



No, he did not eat all that!

We enjoyed our dinner together, despite being seated across from these guys. Seriously. What are the odds? It was a nice bonus.

Our Winter Get-a-Way

Click here to view this photo book larger

This is the shutterfly book I put together from our trip. Most of the pictures are mine, but I did include some of Mom R's, Tyler's, and Danielle's that I edited. (Thanks!) I'm probably going to delete this post in a couple days, but I wanted to share the highlights of our trip.

 

Today's Pic

I was going to post a picture of the sleet or freezing rain or icicles on the basketball hoop and door knob, but this picture makes me happier. My Valentine flowers are opening up nicely.

Today's Pic

Looks like the birds have company. We think it's wintering in Ron's grill. Not overly concerned with finding it yet as long as it stays out there.

Happy Valentines Day!

2 of my sweethearts, with a Clara photobomb

Making Valentines

Once again, Danielle couldn't possibly settle for store bought valentines. After surfing the net for quite awhile, we finally decided on this "crazy" valentine idea.

I especially like "you drive me crazy". She was going to give that to all the boys, but we decided it might hurt someone's feelings. She decided there were 2 boys that would appreciate them and she would make up something else for the others.

She also wouldn't settle with just wrapping a box in foil or wrapping paper. (And using last year's box would be tragic!) Don't know why she settled on a panda, but it looks cute. The valentines go in the top.

 

 

 

And, those poor husbands who are waiting until the last minute to go to Walmart are going to be out of luck tomorrow!!





Melting in the Sunshine

 

Frozen!

I had some time to spare before picking Tyler up from school so I stopped by the park to check out the frozen river. I didn't have my camera, so I snapped a couple cell phone pics. I like to go to this part of the park to sit on the bank and watch the leaves float by, especially in the fall. There weren't any leaves floating by today, but there were a lot of tracks across the snow on top of the frozen river. It was very pretty.

Clara's Birthday & More

Today is Clara's 5th birthday. She is such a well behaved, smart, and loving dog. Our family wouldn't be complete without our furry companion. It makes me a little sad to notice how much gray is starting to show on her face, but she still has plenty of puppy left in her. That's one of the joys of a golden. (She also really needs a haircut!!)

We made Clara puppy cupcakes.

Danielle let her lick the scooper.

Clara doesn't like to walk on the laminate floor, but she knew we were up to something yummy and ventured in far enough to keep an eye on us.

Puppy carob cupcakes, topped with a yogurt based icing and beggin' strip pieces.

Smells. So. Good!
She inhaled 2 and LOVED them!!

Time for presents! It's a tick. The back side says "pinch me".

 

This one has a birthday cake that says "happy birthday" on it. She tried without success to get that cake off. Maybe tomorrow.

Today also happens to be Danielle's 1/2 birthday. At this point, it's probably more about having an excuse to make a dessert, but I'm ok with that.  After all, I'd much rather think about dessert than about Danielle being 11.

Somehow that's supposed to be 10 1/2.

Danielle's basketball team had their first round of end-of-season tournaments today. We won both games by a lot, so we will be first seed for the playoffs next weekend. Danielle kicked butt defensively today, and I'm pretty sure she's going to be feeling it tomorrow!!

See #20 & #28? Both of those big girls ended up guarding Danielle at one point or another.

It wasn't vacation in the Florida Keys, but it was a good day. :)

Today's Pic

 

For the Birds - Anhingas







Sunset Dinner

We had such a nice time with Ron's parents last week. On our last evening together we drove a little further south to the Islamorada Fish Company for dinner. We enjoyed our dinner while watching the sun set over Florida Bay.

Twice a day they feed fish scraps to the tarpon. One of those times is just after sunset. The area is open and the fish come and go. Apparently tarpon (and sharks) are intelligent enough to train, and they return at the same time each day for their treat. Sure enough, at sunset we could see several of the large fish swimming at the top of the water. Once the employee started tossing the scraps into the water, several nurse sharks suddenly surfaced, too. It was very interesting to watch!

The kids also enjoyed watching the fire dancer. Tyler especially enjoyed it, but I think he was secretly hoping the guy would catch his pants on fire. He did not, but we enjoyed the show anyway.

It was a really nice evening together and was the perfect ending to a wonderful getaway.

Alligators!

Danielle's video of some of the alligators along the Anhinga Trail. There were a little too many of them, if you ask me!

Here is one of her pictures, too.