Just when we thought Spring was right around the corner we were blessed with the biggest snow since 2006. Tom has already been out warming up the snowblower-we haven't used it in over 2 years! He headed off to work while I stayed home with the kids. It was a good thing since Allison had a paper to rewrite and a Social Studies test to review. You wouldn't know it was the end of the semester. Both kids managed to do well and I think they were hoping for a bit of a break. Allison did squeeze in a sleepover on Saturday night at a girl friend's house. She would have liked to have seen the Jonas Bros movie concert, but with limited time on the weekends, I figured the live concert we went to last summer was good enough. She just had high hopes that the J Bros would have made a stop here in MD. Guess they were touring around the US this weekend making surprise stops at movie theatres. Tom made Allison calculate the odds. Instead, we celebrated the end of Semester 2 by skiing. The kids had a half day on Thursday, so I took off a few hours and the kids and I along with my GS coleader and her two kids headed up to PA. We were surprised to see the slopes pretty empty. It got busier as the evening came on with teenage snowboarders and families with itty bitty skiers. But overall we had the slopes to ourselves, and we even arrivd on free spaghetti dinner nite! All you can eat! I also had decided we should squeeze in one more ski trip this year since I had a buy one lift ticket, get one free coupon. And the kids loved it. This was Scott's 3rd time on skis and he can't get enough. He goes flying straight down the hills in about 60 secs and is back up the ski lift before I can get my poles ready. I was not too happy to see how excited he was watching the skiers and snowboarders jump and flip on the manmade course. I think we are in trouble. And he just started a gymnastics class. (We have to put all that energy to some good use!). He is a little concerned that he can't quite get the cartwheels.
I am also happy to report that both Allison and Scott are now green belts in karate. Allison tested last week(if you recall for 3 1/2 hrs) and moved up to advanced green belt, and Scott tested this past week and now he is a green belt at his karate school. Way to go guys!
Friday night I had a Girl Scout meeting with a guest speaker. We were preparing for our upcoming Up All Night at the Columbia Mall GS event. My troop of older girls and another troop will be putting on a badge station, Visual Arts for Jr Girl Scouts. The leader of the other troop came over Friday night to show the girls what we will be doing. The Girl Scouts take over the local mall all night long and complete fun activities from 11pm to 5am. The older girls and adults run the event. Last year we ran a craft table. My girls just enjoy eating chinese food at 2am. As an added bonus this year, we only have a 5hr event instead of 6 since it is Daylight savings time. Surprisingly the time usually goes by quickly anyway, so this year will feel especially rushed(more sleep for me). I am just amazed I can actually stay awake all night. Then we sleep all day Sunday. But we do have to get up for puppy school! Pup pup started Puppy Kindergarten last Sunday. The kids and I (and cookie of course) worked on name recognition and sit. Tom thought we would have all the puppy issues worked out in one hour. Right. Like don't chew and don't pee or poop on the floor. I told Tom those were his issues, not the dogs. Overall, the puppy(and us) are doing pretty well. You just have to learn to be smarter than a dog! However, we seem to have a very smart dog. She knows to run away when you want to take something from her. She is definitely our 3rd child. However, as Tom points out, it is not illegal to put her in the crate!
We also spent our weekend delivering food donation bags with the Cub Scouts. Scott's troop will be picking up food donations next week for our local food bank drive, Harvest for Hungry. My girl scouts participate at their Mall event. Scott also participated in a nice graduation ceremony at his karate school. And Tom spent most of the weekend working on the Pinewood Derby car. The cub scouts have model car races every year. Scott has won a trophy both years so far. This year he designed a Wii mobile, and Tom has been busy cutting it out and adding working lights! He also spent some time cutting out our neighbor's son's car for his derby this weekend. We are scheduled for March 14th. Allison and I usually miss most of the event every year since we usually sing in the St Patrick's Day parade with the girl scouts.
Speaking of holidays, the Easter season is upon us and we made sure to celebrate Fat Tuesday last week with one last tasty dessert. Ash Weds arrived this week and with it our promise to give up sweets. Scott on the other hand is trying a different approach. He is headed to the oasis instead of the desert by helping around the house. His steady job is putting away the clean dishes(he just couldn't give up the root beer like he first promised).
Tom thought he had to fly out to Salt Lake city but managed to stay home and work on a presentation instead. However, they may still want him to present in person in the next few weeks. He did make his dentist appt this week after all, and after waiting over an hour for the dentist they discovered the new crown he was supposed to get had a crack in it. Lovely. Guess he will be heading back.
So looks like we will have to wait a few more weeks for Spring. I thought we were so close-my daffodils, tulips and crocuses were popping up already.
No blog from Mark and Linda Seitz this week-seems they are both in Florida with Tom's parents. Mark headed down to run in a local marathon. Hope you both had a great visit, although I hear it was a bit chilly.
Susan and John will be heading down to Florida soon too. Hope you had a fun birthday last week Susan. We have an envelope to send out your way.
We have plans to head to Florida over our Spring Break too. Hope we all don't overwhelm Mom and Dad Seitz.
And I hope the twins, Caroline and Clayton Bozyk had a wonderful birthday party too. The twins turned 13 this year. I am working on a gift for the two of you as well.
See you all next week!