Hanging with the Big Kids and our Oscar party

Last weekend Einar got to hang out with the big kids when we helped as sponsors for our church's high school ski retreat in Big Bear. We accompanied 6 great high school students and the youth leader to Big Bear where we stayed in a cabin, played games, ate pizza, checked out the town, and Jared even got a day of skiing in with the one girl who wanted to ski. Einar had a great time and learned how to "pound fists" as a form of greeting and say "Oh, ya!" They tried to teach him how to say "gross" but it didn't stick. They hadn't had any fresh snow up there for a couple of weeks, but on the morning of our departure, we woke up to about 4 inches! As we were packing up and cleaning the cabin, I assigned one of the girls the task of taking Einar outside to play in the snow before we hit the road.

Last night we used the Oscars as an excuse to dress up and have some friends over for a party. Einar wore his James Bond Tux and looked quite dapper for the evening, but chose not to wear shoes. Jared made an awesome cheese fondue and ceasar salad and I made the brownies, some bread and some yummy cranberry cosmopolitans. With five families and 8 kids, it was a bit challenging to catch the show, but we all had fun. Also, how many other hosts had everyone leave their Oscar party before 8 PM? If you want an early night, just invite lots of families with preschoolers!

It's a good thing that we didn't have a late night since Einar and I got to go to Jared's promotion ceremony this morning on base. I had to drag Rip-Van-Einar's tush out of bed to get there by 9:30, but we were able to witness his promotion to First Sergeant. We're very proud of him!

In other news, we discovered last week that we have a donkey, horse, a half dozen sheep, and 7 or 8 llamas living in our neighborhood. Just on the other side of the block, our neighborhood borders the city's water department station where they use these animals to control the brush and protect against wildfires. All of the animals, except for the llamas, come right up to the fence where we can feed them our yummy veggie scraps. Einar is thrilled, as am I, and even though he hasn't gotten up the nerve to give them the food through the fence yet, he calls out for the donkey, sheep and horsey when we get there and loves to watch the action. It's lots of fun!

Trip to Bend, Birthday Boy, and the Sickies

We're off again for the weekend, this time to Big Bear, CA with the church high school kids. Jared is going to fit another day of skiing into the season and Einar and I will be playing in the snow and hanging out with the non-skiing youth.

We've been up to many adventures since the last posting. We traveled to Bend, OR to spend a week with Jared's family. We got some good skiing in with his sister Jennifer while the kids spent time with their grandparents. On one of the days we took Einar and Sammy with us on a x-country jaunt (more of a photo-op and outdoor picnic than x-country workout since we were so close to naptime and Einar was teething and not having fun being so bundled up). We also discovered that he isn't going to be moving into a big boy bed anytime soon. Sleeping was really a challenge for us because he didn't want to go down for his naps and bedtime since the blow-up Thomas The Tank Engine Toddler bed was so easy to get up off of. Once he got home and went to bed in the Einar Containment Device (a.k.a. the crib), he knew what he was supposed to do and went down easily again. Einar also celebrated his second birthday on our last night there. It was a great week and so good to see everyone!

Once we got home, both Einar and Jared got sick with severe sore throats and fevers. Thankfully I had his 2-year well baby check-up scheduled for Valentine's day so I was able to take him in to make sure that his ears were ok and that his lungs were clear. They've improved a lot in the past few days and we're ready for our next adventure.

Gotta go pack while the guys are out doing an errand so that I don't have my extra set of hands helping out--it's much easier that way!

Friday Night Update

The Aquadoodle, Einar has determined, is great for more than just drawing pictures--tonight he started to use it as a parking lot for all of his vehicles. While I was making dinner, he was in the living room with Jared and he just started to move all of the busses and trucks and cars onto the aquadoodle mat. It was really quite funny.

After dinner we bundled him up in the ski coat borrowed from Nathan and we drove to Mission Viejo to the grand opening of the new Starbucks drive-thru. They opened today and we just drove-thru for some after dinner coffee and entertainment. The drinks were good and the folks inside were excited. Thank goodness there is a drive-thru around here now!