Snow Snow Snow!

This week was pretty much a lead up week to our vacation. We had a lot of snow here, which makes for a good upcoming ski trip!

We started the week with a playdate after Keira's school with Miss Lynn. She worked at the gym daycare until the management changed, and Soren was very attached to her. They were really happy to get to see her.

Ryan also picked up helmets for the kids. Keira went nuts with her on, but Soren was much more reserved, and needed to be bribed with a Hershey's kiss to put his on.




On Tuesday, it snowed most of the day. Keira and Soren played inside for a short time. The mustang still goes everywhere!

We also went outside just before it got dark for some fun in the snow, but didn't stay outside too long since dinner was about to be ready and it was getting dark.





On Wednesday, Keira's class went outside. The snow was falling lightly all morning, and made for a great day to play outside.



We spent some time indoors too, but went outside in the afternoon.








Keira wanted some hot chocolate one we got inside, since she had on her hot chocolate shirt!


On Thursday, we started the morning at Kindermusik. Keira and Soren love going to these. They remembered that this was where Santa was! We actually won a CD from that visit, and they gave it to us today.




Friday was a pretty big day. I had planned to go to the gym for a quick swim this morning, but that didn't work out. I had gotten all ready to get in the pool, including rinsing off, when I saw that the pool was closed. I was furious that the sign for the pool being closed was past the locker room shower area. Really, it was annoying enough that it was closed, but really irritating that I was now all wet and learning the pool was closed. I spoke to the manager, who assured me that there would be a sign on the front of the locker room. I personally would like one on the front door. So, I got dried off and took Soren to the mall to kill the time before heading to the library for storytime.

He was in heaven because the theme for today was Transportation, so the books and stories were about trains, trucks, buses, and diggers!


It was jeans day at school for Keira, which caused a bit of stress getting ready. She would rather wear dresses.

After we picked Keira up from school, we met up with Michelle and Amber for visiting teaching. We had a good visit with them, and we ran into some other friends from church while we were out as well. From lunch, we drove down to meet Linda at IKEA, because I had planned to purchase a bookcase that was too large to fit in either of our vehicles with the carseats in. Sadly, they were out of stock when we got there. I should have checked online, but we had made the arrangements for today a few days ago anyway. Keira and Soren enjoyed frozen yogurt, and I got some picture frames for the latest round of "cousins" pictures as well as figured out how to hang our Christmas present picture of the Subway in Zions National Park.


On Saturday, we had a pretty busy day. Ryan rode indoors with his friends during the morning. While he was gone, we hit Costco, Target, and Meijer, all in one outing, to get food and snacks for our upcoming vacation. Once Ryan got home, I left for my 16 mile run. It was pretty cold, but tolerable, and I ran in the warmest part of the day, the afternoon. I had an awesome pace, and averaged 8:34. Part of this was due to the fact that I knew I would not be running until Thursday of next week. I ran at Kensington, where it was plowed for a little over 5 miles. It was tough running by the beaches, which are fairly unprotected from the wind, but I was very pleased with my run. Keira and Soren anxiously awaited the arrival of Grandma and Grandpa, who were coming up today to break up their drive for our ski trip to start on Sunday.


Here is some of Keira's artwork for the week:



I am going to end it here as my next post will cover the start of the ski vacation.

Back to the Grind

This week was very low key. It mostly consisted of trying to get back into our routine after the two week break. I really wished it had not taken almost the whole time to get the kids sleeping in, because now it is super hard for me to wake them up. They are so crabby when I have to get them up. I also started my own separate running blog since my Team Compex blogging is done for now. All the Christmas decorations are put away, and the big train track came back out.

On Monday, it was back to the routine. I let the kids sleep until about 8 and opted to skip bathes just to let them sleep as long as they could. With yesterday being our first afternoon church, I knew they were plenty tried from that alone. I got back into the pool today while Keira was at school. It was clean, but also freezing. I made it through my 1.2 miles, about 3 minutes slower than my personal best. Both Keira and Soren had a blast playing with their toys after school while I worked on laundry, which actually gave me 2 different quality issues with Gymboree. I made a call to customer service to get issue #1, a blown seam taken care of, when Keira spilled chocolate on her shirt (after everything else was already washed), and the red bled all over the sleeves. It had been an hour since the first call, so I knew they wouldn't be able to combine the order anymore, and just figured that maybe I could take care of it at the store in person instead of having to call them back.




Keira made an icicle today at school.

On Tuesday, we again slept as late as we could, and got to the gym at 10:00, just in time to learn that the class I planned to take at 10:15 had been moved to 9am. I was really irritated because I checked the poster for the class the previous day, and there were three of them that were apparently wrong still, having the 10:15 time still on there. I alerted them to the issue, and did my own track workout on the treadmill and then worked on calling stores to figure out what to do with Keira's shirt. The Somerset store said those shirts had been pulled, likely in response to people having the same problem. I had posted it on f/b last night, and gotten a lot of responses. I ended up calling customer service since they were still selling it online, and they are sending me a second new shirt. We also met up with Valerie, Katie, and Luke for lunch.


I also got on the bike trainer this evening during the bowl game. It was pretty rough, but I made it through 20 miles inside. I was glad Ryan was around to help with getting the resistance right and more water as I needed it. I have a lot of work to do before the summer.

On Wednesday, Keira attended Science Alive as part of school today. She really enjoyed the chinchilla, and her teachers got some great pictures of her with it. They also brought a snake, turtle, armadillo, and frog.







We also used our dino grow capsules from Kristen. Keira and Soren LOVED them, and were super amazed by watching them grow.


We also had a lot of static in the house, so much that the balloons we had from yesterday still stuck to the ceiling from it, not helium. Today seemed to be full of science!

On Thursday, we hit the gym again. It is just too cold to run with the kids outside, so I am doing a ton of indoor running. Blech. Inside, it was more trains again today at home!



My bike rack that I won from USAT arrived today, so I spent a bit of time getting it set up. It was pretty quick to do, and should work out nicely. I did a full post about it on my other site, www.doublejoggerdiaries.blogspot.com


We also got out plans hashed out for our Crystal Mountain ski trip with both of our parents, so a lot of time was spent on the phone. Keira and Soren both got a kick out of the chatter phone that was mine when I was little since it is in Toy Story 3. Thanks Mom, for holding onto this! Keira is acting like me today:

On Friday, Keira just could not wake up. She felt a little warm, and asked to go right back to bed. It was strange, as she was really sick all day today, fever and no energy. We already had an appointment for Soren for a weight check this afternoon scheduled. I was trying to figure out what to do about Keira when the dr's office called to change Soren's appointment from a nurse visit to a dr's visit, which meant an extra co-pay. Also, being Friday, and we would be there anyway, they would also be able to see Keira. It was an expensive day at the dr's office, especially since we don't really know anything. We stopped at Costco on the way home to pick up some enlargements to redo our CA photo collage with pictures from Germany. I was also able to make our reservation official with Crystal Mountain.
California:

Germany:


On Saturday, Keira seemed to be doing a ton better. She had no fever, and her energy was back. We hung out a home in the morning while Ryan rode with friends indoors, and the kids hung out with Ryan at home while I ran 10 miles with Valerie in the neighborhood. It had snowed yesterday through the night, and there was still some snow on the ground. We weren't sure how quickly Kensington would be plowed, and didn't want to spend the extra time driving over there to be disappointed. We knew that the main roads through the neighborhood were clear, and spent most of the time on them. We ran a bit through the snow, but tried to avoid it.





That evening, we got Keira and Soren sized for skis and boots. We will just rent when we get there, as the prices were too high for how much use we will get out of them. Keira can reuse her skis from the last two years, and Soren can wear Keira's old boots, so we really just need to rent 1 mismatched set. We finished off the evening with dinner at Baha Fresh.

On Sunday, we were able to have our first big breakfast of waffles of the year since last Sunday was fast Sunday. That is the one thing that is great about afternoon church. The bad thing is that the kids are both pretty tired by Church time and it makes it difficult for them to sit through it quietly. They went from the lunch table to the car, so I didn't even think to bring snacks until we got there. Maybe we can be done with snacks at church now that Keira is a CTR and doesn't get snack at church anymore. Soren gets snack in nursery, and with lunch right before church, should be able to make it to nursery. We will have to see how it goes. We recorded Aladdin off of TV for Keira to watch this evening. Both kids got pretty silly from being so tired while watching it, as it ended right at 8pm.




Up for next week, we will have another shot at a full week back to normalcy.