More skiing

The videos and pictures don't do it justice, but I thought that you would like to see a short video that I took of Mitchell and Amelia coming down one of their favorite slopes... Cascade (it was one of the first steeper blue slopes for both of them!). If you listen closely you can even hear some positive feedback from a nice young man who happened to be standing beside me at the bottom of the slope (can you guess what part of the country he's from?)! Like I said, the picture doesn't do this slope justice... it's a little harder than it looks!

Winter Break

Mitchell and Amelia had Thursday and Friday off last week so the family headed up to West Virginia for a great winter break of skiing! It snowed on us on the drive up, so it was really beautiful when we woke up on Thursday morning! We stayed at a place called The Resort at Glade Springs, which we love (we also stayed here last year)... they have a great deal for skiers and it is a beautiful resort. Amelia did a half day of ski school on the first day and really got her confidence up... thanks to a wonderful instructor! She and one other boy got to go out on many of the slopes with the instructor by themselves so they got great attention and instruction! When we picked Amelia up at lunch time she was ready to hit the slopes with us! This was our best ski vacation yet because we could all ski together as a family and had a blast together! Dave and I even ventured out onto the black diamond slopes... and managed not to wipe out! Today it's back to reality, but we are already dreaming of our next vacation on the slopes!

Happy Valentine's Day... early!

Cupid Mitchell!
Heading off to deliver the candy grams!
Cupids in the lunchroom

Since the kids are out of school tomorrow and Friday, Valentine's Day came early to OCES! Mitchell is on the student council this year and one fun thing that they get to do this day is deliver all of the candy grams to the students... dressed up as cupids! The money from the candy gram sales goes to the Relay For Life fund for the school, so it's also a great cause! Mitchell had a great time delivering his candy grams... and embarrassing his sister!

Happy Anniversary!

Wow!! As of yesterday (Feb. 8th) Dave and I have celebrated 16 years together! I wish that I could tell you that we did something really romantic to celebrate... but... unless you count going to Peppino's for dinner followed by a night at the Gymdogs meet as romantic, than we must disappoint you! We are taking a ski trip next week during the kids' winter break, so we are counting that as a joint anniversary/Valentine's present. We are all looking forward to that! Dave and I did get a very exciting wake up call yesterday morning by Amelia... at 6am I might add! She came in our room and woke us up, turned on the light, and presented us with a sweet sign that she had made and a bag full of confetti dropped on top of us... we were definitely awake after that! What a great way to start our 17th year together!

Upward Basketball

Mitchell and Amelia have enjoyed playing with the Upward Basketball program for several years now... it is a Christian based sports program and a great positive experience for them! They play games every Saturday afternoon and have so much fun! And of course the stands are filled with cheering parents (some of us louder than others). Their teams are doing pretty well (both have won some and lost some). Amelia is playing basketball this year and has decided to alternate each year between playing and cheerleading (she cheered last year). We're pretty sure that Mitchell is going to stick with playing.. ha ha!

70's Day!

Yesterday was 70's day at Mitchell and Amelia's school... as you can see they really got into it! Most of the students dressed up for the school day, and after school there was a dance with a 70's theme (it was Amelia's first dance!). They mostly did big group dances and their favorite was "YMCA"! Everyone had a great time... what a fun way to end the week!