Winter Wonderland

A negative to having a metal roof - the snow falls off in huge sheets.  When this pic was taken, we didn't even have much snow but it sure feels like a lot when you clean up a huge sheet that just fell off the roof into the driveway! 
 

 

 

You can see how it slides off in sheets in this pic below.  One avalanche even took out Brody!  He thought it was hilarious!
 

Aaron and I got a ski date in on the 20th for his birthday (he turned 41 on the 19th).  Conditions were amazing and not crowded at all!  The Grand Traverse Road Commission just reported that Traverse City (which can be very different from our area - I imagine they got a bit less total than us so far) has received 86" of snow.  Last year it was 16" by this time.  70" difference from last year - quite a change! 
 

 

Here is a pic of our picnic table taken on Christmas day.
 

Grandpa on Christmas day:
 

The pics below were taken about a week before Christmas on our first snow day of the school year:
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

These pics were taken over Christmas break - it's DEEP!  Super hard to walk in and major white wash when we go sledding!
 

 

Our sledding hill!
 

Austin in his santa snow beard
 

 

School Festivities

Jacob received the Honesty award for Character Café this month!
 

 

Jacob and the principal, Ms. Norman
 

Brody was the fisherman in the Gingerbread Play.  He was SO cute :)
 

 

 

Austin's class walking the presents down to the Women's Resource Center after the school adopted two families.  Austin is in the blue striped shirt in the back:
 

Is there anything cuter than dancing preschoolers?
 

Sledding at Austin's school!
 

 

The 2nd graders made Gingerbread houses!
 

The finished product!  We thought that Roxy may have eaten the gingerbread house while we were out on Christmas Eve, but it turns our Santa left a note saying he liked it so much he took it back to the North Pole with him :)
 

The school had a Holiday Show on Friday, Brody sang Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer and Jacob's class sang and did sign language for Up on the Housetop.  Brody enjoyed his red nose so much that the following day we caught him in the bathroom drawing on his own red nose with a marker.  Thankfully, it was a washable one!
 

Brody is on the end in the blue shirt!
 

North Carolina

The guys relaxing on Saturday night (I think Jim was in a poker game at the time of the pic).  The fishing tournament was a bust for them.  Aaron purchased new rods this year and they were shipped without any problems (unlike last year), but the conditions were terrible and they couldn't get many fish to bite.  Once they did catch a good keeper, Aaron's limbs were so numb that he stumbled trying to put the fish in the wet well and realized it was either him or the fish that was going in the water and he decided it should be the fish.  Conditions were in the 30's with rain.  The guys called it a day around noon and napped in front of the fire.
 

The girls on Saturday night
 

Our group at the Charity event - my eyes are closed but we only took one pic of the whole group!
 

The boys were very good for Grandma.  Brody had a birthday party for a class friend on Saturday and then they all went to Incredible Mo's for Mason and Noah's birthday celebration!  They were excited to see us... AND really excited to see their new bobber bears when we returned.
 

The awesome Sonoma trophy!  It was heavy!
 

Flight delays both ways due to de-icing, but not too bad!
 

 

Our silly photo booth pics:
 

The girls in the photo booth!  Sharon, me, Sherry and Sherry's friend Erin.  She was really sweet and used to drive race cars!
 

The few days before our trip I had awful migraines that would go away with Maxalt but only to return 12-24hrs later.  I tried a Toradol shot Tuesday (we left Thurs) and the only thing that did was bruise my hip and the bandaid gave me a rash.  Thursday I tried acupuncture before we left and then on Friday when we were in NC, I tried a hot stone massage.  Apparently, I should have asked for a warm stone massage because it resulted in some blisters.  Thankfully I was back to feeling 100% on Saturday (minus a few blisters, but I'll take a few small blisters over a migraine any day).