Outdoor Fun and Electric Violins!

Now that we have some good snow we are trying to take advantage of it!  The kids love being pulled around the yard on the snowmobiles. We made it to the Fire and Ice Festival in Farmington and all of the kids got a dog sled ride around the fields, we did a treasure hunt with the reward of free movie tickets for the kids, and had some fun jumping from the hay.

At the end of the week I stumbled upon a really cool opportunity we took advantage of at the last minute.  There was a group called "The Femmes of Rock" who were hosting a free educational workshop for students.  They were a group of 4 women who play rock songs on their electric violins. It was really impressive to see and hear them talk about their journey.  This was all despite the fact that the power went out twice when a car hit a telephone pole down the street.  Electricity is pretty important for them to be able to play their instruments so that was a bit disappointing, but the kids got to hear a bit and learned a lot from them.

Sugarloaf 2018

We booked our trip to Sugarloaf last September when the prices were low and the kids were free. We were a little worried that we would be wasting our money this year given the lack of snowfall and warmer temperatures.  We were pleasantly surprised at the great snow conditions!  As a result, there was almost no one skiing there are we never had to wait in line at a chairlift the whole time we were there.

The kids have all progressed so far this year with their skiing.  Noah and James can now skin almost anything and love the black diamond trails over in the King Pine Bowl.  Ben can ski any Blue trail and is certainly ready for some black diamonds, but prefers not be go too far outside of his comfort zone.  Audrey took her first few runs down Tote Road and did amazingly well.  She also got her first black eye as a result of skiing when she had an impressive yard sale at one of the steeper sections of the trail.  She is a trooper though and finished the run.

Grammy and Grampy joined us for a night on Tuesday and got to see the kids enjoy rock climbing that afternoon.  We all skied the next day and James took his first trip down Misery Whip, mostly as a result of his persistent asking and us finally relenting.  I think it would have been a bit better with some snow, but he did really well and loved it.  The conditions weren't great on our last day and everyone's goggles kept icing up, but we enjoyed ourselves anyway:)

Not surprisingly, the day after we left Sugarloaf we got a huge snowstorm... So, Gabe took Noah and James and headed back for a powder day. They had a good time until Gabe realized that powder isn't easy to ski in unless you have strong, adult legs... oh well! 

February Vacation... almost;)

The Friday before school vacation we took advantage of a 60+ degree ski day at Black Mountain, in February!  We haven't gotten much snow this winter and a lot of the terrain wasn't great, but the main trails were fine and it was such a beautiful day!  All of the kids are doing really well and are skiing all of the blue trails from the top of the mountain without difficulty.  Some faster than others, but still so much fun!

We spent a day at Norland's Living History Center last weekend.  It is still warm so there was a good amount of mud everywhere, but we were able to take a horse and sleigh ride anyway.  We got to write with quill pens, learn about President's Day, and help harvest/store the ice for next summer. 

We are also starting to experiment with more contemporary artists and creating drawings that are stretched and distorted beyond what normal perception would be.  Here they are tracing images on the windows. 

V-day & Gabe's Birthday

I think the kids are way more excited about Gabe's birthday than they are Valentine's Day, but they have never said no to the morning chocolate;)

Last weekend we had to say goodbye to the pigs. These pigs were certainly eager to chew, but they seemed to love us and loved to be rubbed everyday.  After our experience last year, we were not looking forward to getting them into the trailer.  We had had another warm stretch and didn't have as much snow as we would like, but we took some extra  precautions and, as it turned out, we didn't need to. The pigs walked right into the trailer together on the first try.  They didn't know what to do when we took down the fence and set them free, but they mostly followed my voice and walked right in.  We welcomed the ease and found ourselves back home with free time in the afternoon.  However, this did make it much harder to say goodbye to them at the slaughter house:(

In other happenings, Audrey has started going down "the Main" at Titcomb AND has started riding the T-bar on her own with Ben. This is really huge for me because it kills my back and legs to ride a t-bar with someone half my height;)  

100s Day... kind of;)

We celebrated 100s day a day early because of our schedule, but no one seemed to mind;)  I actually thought we might be able to skip 100s day this year, but everyone insisted, so we threw something together.  I actually don't even really need to plan anything anymore because they insist on doing the same activities every year... and obviously in Audrey's case an insistence on wearing only some pull-ups she found, but hasn't worn in over a year... I guess this is just one of the reasons we love to homeschool;)