Back to Reality

Now that I've caught everyone up on our amazing vacation, I'll catch up on all the other life that happened before/after the trip!  Life was busy before the trip with Girl Scout Cookie deliveries, finishing up Noah's basketball season, and Evie had her first band concert.  

A quick visit to Nana Mil

It was a great basketball season for Noah, and I had so much fun helping to coach the team!

At Evie's concert, I'm pretty sure she had the biggest audience - parents, siblings, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins and friends!  I am so excited that she is learning to play the flute!

Flute group solo (Evie on the left)

FMS Band

Friends

Besties

Cousins

Evie's fan club

It was good to have a lot going on so that we didn't have time to stress about the trip, and I prayed every day that we would stay healthy.  The last day before the kids' school break ended up being a snow day, so they had an extra long break, and we appreciated the extra buffer before traveling.

Dressed for the Olympics.  Noah and Matt built a luge track out back!

Craft kits galore on their snow day

Snow Day baking project

Snow day dinner

We attempted to play this Escape Room game, and it was TOO HARD!  Everyone was grouchy.

It was VERY COLD and there were snow squalls while we sold cookies at Walmart!  These girls earned their cookie credits!

Returning home was tough, as it always is after vacation!  We were happy to see Frankie, and the kids were happy to see their toys.  Luckily it was a 3-day school week, so we got through it, and celebrated with a night of skiing/snowboarding over the weekend.  Sunday, we had a beautiful day that felt like Spring, and it gave us hope that winter will eventually end!  

Keva Blocks creation

Taking a break for some fries.  Learning to snowboard is tough!

All 4 at the mountain!

Nighttime on the slopes

Looking like Spring

I wish this weather would stay!  It was glorious!

The other big news is that masks are now optional for the kids at school starting this week.  The announcement came out on Friday afternoon, and it felt like an abrupt shift after 2 years of masking, so we told the kids to play it by ear and do whatever felt comfortable to them.  They both decided not to wear a mask for most of their day, and it seemed to go well.  Matt also returned to the office one day last week, and his team is going to go in one day per week for some collaboration time.  Almost 2 years to the day, it's hard to believe we are moving so quickly back to normal.

Not quite as cozy as the old home office!