The prepping for midnight soon began.
Everyone grabbed their head wear of choice and some noisemakers.
HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!
A few traditions.....
Eat 12 grapes as quickly as possible to ward off bad luck.
Celebrate with super fizzy sparkling cider.
Someone can't handle the bubbles.
One other tradition....never being able to watch Dick Clark's New Years Eve.
Every year we try, but we get stuck watching the lame Seattle celebration for various reasons.
It's actually pretty hilarious.
Maybe Dick Clark's ghost has something against us transplanted East Coasters.
And this years Seattle celebration was lamer than most.
They couldn't shoot off the fireworks because it was extremely windy.
So, the Space Needle flashed lights like a giant disco ball accompanied to party music.
It was bad.
Here's a video. Which is even worse, because there's no music.
There were a few days left of Winter break after New Years this year.
We didn't do much.
I took some time to take our decorations down.
This was a new addition this year.
Christmas GOAT.
He was wet. I had to let him dry before storage.
Ralph did not like him.
"Just don't make eye contact....maybe it'll go away....."
By the time break was over, the gingerbread house looked like this.
So, it may seem as if we were JUST at this friends house for New Years, but they celebrate Three Kings Day/Epiphany as well.
We were back at their place on January 6th, which was also the first day back at school.
Katie had run outta steam by the time we got there.
The rest of us were ready to party with LOTS of delicious Mexican food including TAMALES.
Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.
After gorging on all sorts of YUM, it was time for the traditional game of Lotteria.
Mikey was ready to listen carefully (the calls are in Spanish) and win some quarters.
"LOTTERIA!!!!"
After a few rounds of lotteria, it was time to cut the Rosca de Reyes and find us some Baby Jees-I.
(that's the plural of Jesus)
I think both kids found a Baby Jesus this time.
Katie baked up some gluten free cinnamon swirl buns.
I'm not sure when during the month these were made.
For a box mix, they really weren't bad!
Downright yummy, actually.
One week into the school year and then this happened.
Snow.
It was Monday, January 13th.
Would this be a repeat of last years 'Snowmageddon' that took out our entire month of February?
I think it was about 2-4 inches and it was cold. Like below freezing cold.
Which, if you didn't know, is not typical for our region.
Definitely enough snow to go sledding in.
First run on this years first snow went to Mikey.
Besides having all of his people home......
......Ralph's favorite thing about the snow is "catching" snow balls.
I am not quite sure how Mikey doesn't get cold.
He ends up covered head to snow in snow.
EVERY. TIME.
Like Father.....
.....like daughter.
Mikey's turn.
This is before he tanked.
I think he purposely tanks at the end of each of his runs.
We found out that Ralph makes a good sled dog.
You just have to make sure you hold on to the leash.
Otherwise, you just end up with a crazy and ridiculous-looking hyper puppy.
At one point, Mikey ditched the sled and used his butt.
One.....two.....
............threeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
"Hey, mommy? I can haz snow ball?"
Channeling his inner Elsa.
"The cold never bothered me anyway."
"The cold never bothered me anyway."
"Hey, mom? I can haz hot chocolate?"
So, cheeky.
That's a snowball coming my way.
It just left his right hand.
I got to take a sled dog run or two before leaving.
Katie and Huzbend headed home and took Ralph with them.
Mikey wanted to stay even longer so he could build a snow man.
A good start.
Which got weirder by the minute.
I honestly don't know what this is.
George Washington?
It began to snow, so we headed back home.
Mikey's class had UPcycled some stuff at school.
He brought home two creations.
He would not let me recycle them until I took a picture of them.
So, here we are.
I asked him to show me what these things did.
I still don't know what this is supposed to be.
Here is the other creation.
This one made a little more sense.
It could be a rocket.
OR, a rocket launcher.
The next day, our cold snap continued.
The snow from Monday did not melt and thanks to passing snow showers it actually grew a little more.
Roads were iced over.
No school. Again.
The kids were still up for sledding.
Even Katie.
Although, I think she just goes out so she can pitifully beg for hot chocolate.
Mikey, once again, became a walking snow person.
"What?"
Literally, two seconds later, he was throwing snow AT HIMSELF.
Katie headed down the hill.
A successful run for her.
Katie kept trying to get Ralph to pull her down the hill.
But, he wasn't having it today.
Too lazy.
Since, she had to walk him back up every time, she soon gave up.
The kids created a new game....Daddy Mush!
HA!
After this, Daddy was exhausted.
It was time to go home.
Guess what?
We had one more day of no school.
Although the roads were pretty clear where we were, they weren't in other parts of our school district.
The kids were DONE with sledding.
Katie did, at one point, go out to create some snow creatures on our deck.
She created a snow person.
And a snow dog.
Mikey decided to join her.
He decided to kick it up a notch.
He had to be careful and roll around the dog poop.
Not one to be left out, Ralph joined them in the yard.
Soon, they began working together.
Mikey would roll up the large snow balls and Katie would decorate.
Snowy Cute.
Fuzzy cute.
Soon, the snow person had fern hair.
And then, the snow person turned into a snow elf princess.
Mikey and Katie realized that they had different hair color.
Mikey decided to put together his own full size snow person.
Katie tried to help him with the face.
.................................
It's kinda funny, but the snow people kinda match Katie and Mikey in height comparison.
Before she went inside, Katie created one more snow creature.
A snow bunny to tease the snow dog.
FINALLY, the snow melted enough that the kids were able to go back to school and life continued on as normal.
Mikey had the final class of his "Comedy and Combat" drama class.
Here he is using a nonsense word as a swear.
That Friday, the 17th, the kids started playing an 8 week Dungeons and Dragons adventure at a local board game cafe.
They had played before with us at home, but it's always much funner to go and play with other people.
They had a fantastic time and were totally hooked.
The next day, Katie was away at a Science Olympiad competition.
The boys decided to do a little mountain biking and I walked the dog.
It had only been a few days since the snow.
With the rising temps, it made for quite a muddy walk/ride.
There were also lots of tree branches down across the trail.
Ralph, not one to pass up a puddle, dove into a muddy, half frozen one on our way back to the car.
And, per usual, Ralph spent 99% of our walk time looking for the other people we came with.
"Daddy?"
Sadly, Katie's mini-team within her bigger Science Olympiad team didn't win anything at the competition. But, they still did better than they thought they would.
I'm not sure why a cake was made.
Boredom, maybe?
But, it was.
That Monday was a day off from school due to MLK, Jr. Day.
We decided to hike down to a beach.
Mikey decided he would work on his rock skipping.
After many tries, he was finally successful.
Katie decided to try as well.
But, overcome with a fit of giggles, managed to only throw it about one foot.
Which led to more giggles.
"Wait. Wait! Hold on! I can't breathe...."
"Huh. It's usually us that are acting all hysterical like."
Someone had set up a giant drift log as a see-saw.
Ralph can't resist diving in any sort of water.
Today was no exception.
At least this was not muddy or frozen.
Mikey, the daredevil, had to cross over the stream on the mossy log.
The next week brought with it Mikey's last Broadway Revue class.
They were going to perform a tiny bit of "You're A Good Man, Charlie Brown."
Katie was there in support.
Their opening number.
The title song.
With choreography.
Mikey played two parts.
Here he is as Linus.
The girl is Sally.
They ended with one more song and dance called, "My New Philosophy".
Here's a video.....
It was downright sweltering in that room.
Finally, the hat came off.
Ew. Shweaty.
Mikey and his friend posed for photos afterward.
Katie had a Crohn's and Colitis Camp Oasis event that weekend.
It was at a Paint-Your-Own Pottery store.
The kids painted ceramic hearts that would be given to kids in the hospital.
I occupied my time painting a Pokemon.
The last Monday in January was one more day off for the kids.
It was a non-student day used for grading.
Mikey had a friend sleep over.
They busied themselves with the cardboard we had stashed downstairs since Christmas.
Hilarious.
What was not so hilarious?
They tried to walk down the stairs with these on.
Seriously.
To get them away from the TV, I took them frisbee golphing.
This also allowed Katie to have a bit of "Free From 10 Year Old Boys" time.
