Melissa, Ryan, Keira and Soren: Happy Valentine's Day!

This week was Valentine's Week for us. I think it was mostly since Valentine's Day fell on a Sunday complete with Ward Council meeting for me. That meant that we had to do our celebrating a bit early. We had a decent amount of snow this week, and I felt like I got at ton cute pics of Keira and Soren in the snow.

On Monday, we had our typical gym then storytime morning. We hadn't been to the storytimes on a Monday in a while due to Soren or Keira being sick.

Once we got home, we played with Bendy Sticks, and made some interesting creations (thanks to the step by step directions included).

On Tuesday, Keira had a field trip to see Science Alive at the ITC center. They had snakes, turtles, and chickens. Keira mentioned that the snakes were smelly, and that the turtle was really a tortoise, but she had a great time. She brought home her new year's fireworks artwork today. It had been hanging outside the classroom.

It started snowing heavily today, so we were able to have some fun in the snow. I took a ton of pictures, and had a hard time figuring out which I liked best, so here are a bunch. We made a little tiny snowman, which Soren knocked down twice, and Keira tried to rebuild.

The snow caused the church activities to be cancelled for the evening, so we thought we might be able to go to the gym as a family (using a guest pass for Ryan) to try out the spin class. As of 4pm, the class was still on, but we learned it was cancelled as we arrived due to the weather. We decided to save the pass for another day and headed back home. I may try again on my own next week while Ryan is at scouts, but I got a great workout on the trainer at home instead.

Wednesday was a snow day for the schools, but it didn't have much effect on us. We called Kathryn who teaches the Wednesday storytime to see if it would go on, and sure enough, it did. I worked out super fast (and had a PR of 18:43 for a half mile swim) to make it to the library storytime. There was only one other boy there today due to the weather.

Soren gets distracted easily when there are not a lot of other children in the room.

We also played in the snow some more, since it was no longer falling on us today. It was blowing a bit, though. You can see the full amount of snow that fell today. The snow was much deeper, and Soren struggled to walk in it. He had to stick mostly to the sidewalk. His cheeks got so rosey right before we headed inside. Sadly, it was not good packing snow, so we still couldn't really make a size able snowman.

Fortunately for Keira, she had school on Thursday. It was the day of her Valentine's Day party at school. This was a small scale party, so parents were not invited to it, but they still had Valentine's Day snacks and a card exchange. Keira gave out Disney Princess cards taped to m&ms(shocker!) and was so happy with all of her cards and candies she received.

I was able to take Soren to Kindermusik during Keira's school today. This was the first one that I was able to make it to due to the fact that I remembered it and didn't schedule a presidency meeting or run Soren-only errands during it. They are only once per month per location, so they aren't the easiest to keep track of sometimes. Soren really had a great time.

Additionally, while Keira was at school, I had to see MY doctor for a terribly itchy skin condition (gross!). My skin has been really dry and itchy all winter, but yesterday it was at its worst, resembling what Soren had in Crystal Mountain. He diagnosed it as contact dermatitis, and prescribed a cream that worked wonders. We aren't really sure what caused it, the only thing that changed recently was that the gym got new super nice fluffy towels that actually felt nice to rub on my skin as opposed to just blotting, so perhaps the detergent there is the culprit. At any rate, I am now bringing my own towels to the gym for a while as an experiment. Towels were also a possible suspect for Soren's rash which was never fully diagnosed since it was almost gone by the time we saw a doctor for it.

On Friday, my watch band officially broke. This was my SECOND Nike watch band that fractured, and due to the design of the watch, I had no idea how to replace either band. Fortunately, I was able to get it to stay on for my mile swim that was also a PR- just over 40minutes. After the gym, we met up with Cortnie, Averie, and Ella at the mall. I am so happy that they are moving back into our ward later in the spring! Yeah! Averie will be a Sunbeam with Keira, and Ella will be in nursery with Soren.

In the afternoon, I worked on some Valentine's Day treats with Keira. She was very eager to help, and was not excited that we couldn't eat them right away.

That evening, Ryan started the Valentine's Weekend by bringing a dozed white roses. They are so pretty and smelled great. We also went to Macaroni Grill as a family for a date. We also enjoyed the opening ceremony for the 2010 Winter Olympics.

On Saturday, I took Keira and Soren to the library for Kiddie Crafts. As expected, they made Valentines for this month's craft.

While we were at the library, Ryan attempted to ride a the Tree Farm. Unfortunately, it was a total bust. The snow we received in the week was too deep and not yet packed so riding was not possible. We hit Costco while Ryan was heading back home. I was able to return my "defective" watch since Costco pretty much lets you return anything as long as you bought it in the last 2 years. I really wasn't sure if I should try to return it, since it was a really inexpensive watch (it was purchased for less and 1/3 of what it would sell at a sporting goods store). Maybe for that price I should expect to have to replace the band already, and also, since it was such an inexpensive watch, there was no way I was going to be able to replace it elsewhere for what I paid. In fact, after I returned it, I almost second guessed what I did when I started looking online and realized that I may be out a lot of money to get a new watch, and maybe it would have been cheaper to just send it back to Nike to have them repair it. I am done with Nike watches now after this, and wanted to go back to Timex. Finally, I was able to find a watch with 99 lap memory (which I need at least 70 to keep track of a mile swim) for only about $15 more than what I got back for my other one at REI. I squeezed in an 8 mile run outside during part of Soren's nap, and then we headed to REI. We are so glad we went, because it was super clearance time. Ryan was able to score a great deal on a set of carbon pedals for the new road bike that is in the works for an AMAZING deal. We were also able to get a few items for the kids for next fall and winter, as well as some new tri shorts for me. Happy Valentine's Day to everyone!

Sunday was the actual Valentine's Day. We haven't had many big breakfasts since the start of the new year with early church and athletics on Saturdays, so I wanted a big breakfast for Valentine's day. Unfortunately, due to ward council, it didn't happen until about 3pm. We exchanged cards and had a pretty lazy day. My flowers had opened beautifully in time for today.