Reading Week

Monday was Family Day, so Dave had the day off work.  He decided to take the kids skiing.  Leah didn't feel like going.  She sat in the Lodge with me.  Although I was sad she didn't go, it was nice to have company. Dave took Blake and Cora to the top and they skied there all day.  Dave said it was so fun to have his kids up there with him.

Tuesday Leah had an eye appointment to see how her contacts are doing.  All is well and we purchased a supply for her.  Cora and Leah did a bit of shopping.  I was hoping to get some snow pants on sale for Blake, but didn't find any.  We got groceries and came home.

Wednesday Blake had a friend over.  He has got some good friends and it was nice to see them hang out.  Cora dropped off a few more resumes, I hope she gets some good leads soon.  We watched some good classics over the break.   Hello Dolly, Singing In the Rain, and My Fair Lady.  Cora still has on her list to watch Breakfast at Tiffany's, Sabrina, and Roman Holiday.  I guess we will wait until the next school break for those.

Thursday we cleaned, did art, laundry, some baking, watched a movie, and played games.  Then Cora had fire department in the evening.

Friday we headed to the temple for the girls to do baptisms.  Blake and I went to the book store to look for his scriptures while the girls were at the temple.  Even though his birthday is not until August, I was glad we had looked.  I was told that everything is going up 30% end of March.  So we ordered the ones he wants.  That night Leah had a party and I went to a movie with my in-laws.  Movie was better than I had expected and when I went to pay I found out I had enough points for a free movie.  Bonus!!

Saturday Dave wanted to get one more ski in.  He let the kids sleep in a little, then we got packed up and headed out.  It was another great day for skiing.  They had gotten more snow and the top was really thick powder.

Leah skied until about 2 then she was done.  Dave was only able to get one picture of her, riding the lift with Cora.

Dave said he thinks that Cora and Blake advanced about 3 years in the two days we went.

They did some tough runs with no problems at all.  Blake had one fall and he got right up and kept going.

Dave was one proud dad with his kids skiing up there with him. On the way home, Dave got a craving for Pizza Hut.  We drove past our highway turn and on into town.  When we got to town, an hour out of our way for pizza, we discovered that is was closed for renovations.  We ended up going to Five Guys instead.  On the way up the road to Five Guys we passed the Movie Mill.  Dave saw a sign for Moana and joked that we should just keep going with our day and see it as well.  Turned out that after we ate, the movie started 15 mins later.  So we went.  Leah had seen it the night before at the party, but didn't mind going again.  It's a cute show.  It was a very long, fun, family filled day.  One we haven't had for months.  It was the perfect end to our Reading Week.

Another Catch up

For Leah, basketball is done for the year.  She has been attending some high school practices to get ready for next year.  A few weeks ago Leah had her final tournament and Cora had her home tournament.  I didn't get to see any of Leah's final games, but heard she did well.

On the Saturday, Dave took Leah to her game and Cora and I went to hers.  They had both lost the night before and had very early games.  We all left the house at 6:30 in the morning.

Cora has been trying a few hairstyles now that her hair is growing out more.  And she got me a rose for Valentine's Day.

I enjoy getting flowers and never do.  Cora has been trying to get me some for awhile now.  It was a beautiful rose.

Last weekend was another tournament.  The team is kinda done for the season and we have had some issues.  But Cora is still giving it her all.  She is very fast and gets great break aways.  And she can jump like crazy.  Two of the teams we played had girls almost 6 feet tall.  Cora out rebounded them every time.  It is fun to watch.  After the last game last weekend, her coach took her aside and complimented her on her drive and sticking with it.  Said she played so good, he was very proud of her.  It was nice that what she does finally got noticed. 

Cora is the blue #14. Sunday was a quite, peaceful day.  We had water in the moat around our house that had frozen.  Dave decided that we should all go for a walk and slide on it.

Turned out it was very thin.  Mostly slush.  But we had fun anyways.

It was also deeper than we thought.  We all ended up with wet socks, Blake was pouring water out of his boots.

At one point Blake got stuck and Dave had to pull him out. Honestly I was a little disappointed that his boot did not stay in the mud.  It seems that is should be some sort of right of passage of growing up to get stuck in the mud, have your Dad pull you out, and leave your boot behind.

Cora also got an email this week saying that for the Firefighters Stair Climb Challenge, that she has been fundraising for and so excited about, she can not participate in.  She has to be 18.  She is so very very disappointed.  She can run into burning buildings, attend car crashes, but not climb stairs.  We have a week off this week and it so far has been great and relaxing.  A needed rest.

This and that...

Basketball season is starting to wrap up.  Leah has one final tournament this weekend and she is done.  For Cora it is only 3-4 more weeks, but in that time she has 6 games and 3 tournaments.  I think Blake is the most anxious for this season to be over.  The girls and I have been gone a lot.

Blake had a floor hockey tournament last week.  It was fun to go and watch him play.  He did well and had a lot of fun.

Waiting with his friends for their next game.

Blake has also been playing the guitar more and is getting a good number of songs he can do.  Back in October he and a friend started a Buff up Bootcamp at school.  They stay every Monday after school and do this.  He is really enjoying running that with his friend and all the kids that stay.

Saturday Leah and I went with all the other Grade 9 girls and their mom to shop for grad dresses.  I am not a shopper.  But it was fun to hang out with them.  Some of the girls were successful.  Trying on all the dresses has made Leah more indecisive about what she wants.  Now she really just wants to wear a black shirt, jeans and boots.  I told her June was going to be boiling, how about shorts and sandals.  Oh well we are still looking.

The girls tried on some horrible things for fun. I am sure the sells clerks saw 5 teenage girls coming and thought, here we go.

Lovely hats girls!

The rest of them stayed over and continued the next day.  Since it was a Sunday we didn't.  But we drove in front of a terrible storm and I was so glad the next day when I woke up and saw all the snow that I didn't have to drive home that day.  Roads were closed and Cora's games was cancelled on Monday, it was so bad.  While we were gone the other two kids and Dave worked on a bit of fence repair, separated some cows that had got back in together, hauled water, feed cows, (Dave has been getting all the kids to drive the tractor again this winter) and went to the dump. It is so nice to have the weeks shared between Dave and Jared.  Helps to take some stress off and not have to get up so crazy early, the week Dave is not on. Sunday we went to the Toones to celebrate Emily's birthday.  Again we stayed way to long and got back late.  Dave had gotten up early to water and check the cows. (He had been getting up at 4 all week to get it done before work.)  He also ran in to shovel the walks for church.  At church we got a flat tire.  Myrna gave us a ride home.  We then took another car to the Toones and had planned to change the tire on the way home.  Back at the church Dave searches his pocket, only to discover we had lost the car keys at their house and had to drive back home to get the spare keys.  Back to change the tire and one more water and cow check.  Then finally and blissfully to bed.

A while back for fire department they did a bale burn.  I think Cora said there were 100 bales.  The bales were decades old and had been used as a fence.  She was out until 3 in the morning, her suit caught on fire a few time and it was so hot they were putting snow down their gloves.  Cora loved every minute of it.

Also last week we were loving our heated garage with sink in it.  As I mentioned it was Dave's week to feed and water.  He pulled right into our garage with the tank on his truck.  He could then fill it with the cold and hot water.  He would have Blake help him fill it and then drive over and dump.  After the loads were done he could pull back into the garage and nothing froze.  It worked so slick he  offered to continue doing it this week for Jared.

We are getting closer to grad for the girls.  There are things to be done and prepped for that.  We got Leah into EFY for the summer.  Starting to make clothes for trek.  Looking at places for Cora to live next fall.  She only has two classes this semester and so has decided to look for a job.  Dave has been helping her put a resume together.  She is pretty stressed about the searching part.  Cora has had to do some actual fundraising.  She has to raise $500 to participate in a Firefighter Stair Climb Challenge.  She left a container at our local bottle depot and has put links up on her Instagram.  She has got a little so far.  I think that is all.  I didn't think I had much to say, but it ended up being very long.