Snow day

What we did today

136 dominoes! At least that's what the box says. Maybe someone can count and let us know if we got them all.

Snow and ice

An inch of snow and ice has shut down schools and snarled traffic for two days straight here in Virginia. Our new president poked fun at Washingtonians today for shutting down over a bit of snow and slush, but the kids sure enjoyed two days of forced vacation and sledding on very slick, icy hills!

Running out of photos to blog

I've run out of new photos for the blog, so I figured I could recycle some old ones. In case you're wondering, that's a wreath over the front door. Way over the front door.

Inauguration Day

No TV, so we gathered around the streaming video, thanks to the newly discovered partnership of CNN.com and Facebook.

Family movie recommendation

We recently watched Kit Kittredge, An American Girl and were surprisingly impressed! I know there's an "American Girl" doll collection that's a craze for many young girls, but this movie instead of being a sales scheme for more dolls is a well-acted, well thought out story with moral depth. It takes place in the Depression era and gently addresses issues of racism and xenophobia through the eyes of a young would-be reporter. If my Canadian relatives can get past the movie's unfortunate title, they'll find a great family movie inside. Some younger kids (like Jordan) may need reassurance about some of the sadder parts near the beginning of the movie, involving people losing their homes to foreclosure and Dad's having to travel far away to find work.

Star of the week

Jordan was "star of the week" in his class last week, which meant that he got to do show-and-tell throughout the week. On Monday he brought a display of pictures he talked about with his class, describing his favorite activities and his friends. On Thursday he brought his Dad to talk about what he does as a rocket scientist. The class was amazingly well behaved and attentive, and asked tough questions like "how much does a rocket weigh" and "are you one of the ones searching for that alien space ship that parachuted in from outer space a few months ago" and "has any rocket with people in it ever blown up?"

Barn cat

Heavy with ice

3D Maze

If you thought Jordan's mazes were tough before, try this one out! He had this idea today to make a 3D maze, so he and I worked on it after breakfast and came up with this six-sided maze.

Mending fences

I did some more fence work today, taking down a friend's old fence. This time I had a couple young helpers! The job probably took a little longer than it would have on my own, but we passed a fun two hours and finished the entire fence row. I love it when kids can find fun in work!

Shoot-'em-up, Nerf-style

Dude, where's the enemy?
Father-son bonding time












Happy birthday, Berghan, and thanks for the fun war!

Horses on our farm

We put up temporary fencing and brought two of the horses over a few days before the New Year. Joey and Scotchy performed admirably, taking everything in stride and enjoying the green grass. Chancy and Nugget would likely not have been so easy in a new place for the first time! We're staking out plans for the barn and additional fencing to go in this spring.