In like a lamb...

 As we head into the second week in March (time, would you just *stop* with all this flying??), there are hints that spring is on the way.  My tulips are starting to poke up in the garden!!  Their daffy sisters, too.  We had a 70 degree day last weekend!  You could just feel the vitamin D soaking in to any exposed skin. As much as I am melancholy about the end of ski season, I think I am ready for some warmth and light in this world. 

Even though we have skiied since and may go again (Peek n'Peak day rescheduled to this coming weekend), I think I may count March 3rd as my last time out. Because it was nearly perfect.  No crowds, snow that was better than it had ANY right to be, and just good clean fun on every run, laughing and enjoying time with my honey. 

What better way to spend a few hours on a Thursday night??

Enjoying the springlike weather with Winter the next day... we encountered these three deer who were simply NOT fazed by our presence. Wild kingdom, here in Cleveland Heights.

Celebrated my mom's 70th birthday with dinner at Olive Garden and a small after-party at our place. She and her new friend Kirk seemed to enjoy themselves. 

This is how our cat watches TV sometimes. 

Warm Saturday afternoons mean freedom for chickens.  We have sadly had a lot of loss to the flock recently.  Two bird left us during the cold and snow in early February- we found one body and the other just.... disappeared.  Then the thawing world released the predators and something else got 4 (!) more birds before we could find the weak point and secure the coop.  It was sad to lose Maran, our one remaining bird from our original flock, and a few of my favorites (Chipmunk, Cochin...).  The 4 birds we have left are all young and prolific layers, so that's nice.  But they've never been named or taken to heart like some of our early ladies. Still cute, though.  And handling the coop trauma well-- laying regularly and very curious about humans.  

Now that we are down to our regulation 4 birds... we may have to raise some more chicks this spring...

Sunny and 70 Saturdays also call for lake time... where we were surprised to find quite a bit of ice left on the water.

Couldn't keep these two off of it. 

Delicious sunshine and and friendly people walking dogs and chatting and soaking it all in.

More chicken time.

Had just the most fun Saturday night. Warm enough for a cozy porch fire with a great group of friends and neighbors and numerous bottles of wine.  Jack had 3 friends over for the evening and they were just the cutest.  They played Sorry and fooseball in the basement and ate a lot of pizza and wandered over to Cumberland park for a while to get up to no good.  Ivy had a grand time with Lillian and Naomi and Ira when he joined them.  Thank goodness for the Wii.

Sunday-  spring skiing all the way when we went to the Ski Patrol Meet and Greet morning.  We skiied through slush and puddles and ice balls and all manner of crud in the blazing sun-- and had a great time meeting new people and honestly enjoying conditions that were better than they could have been.  We will find out by the end of the month if we are accepted to train for the Patrol. Then we get to decide if we have the time to commit to doing it.  When we first thought this up, in winter 2021, when the rest of activities in life were cancelled, it seemed doable.  Two choirs and a highschooler later and our schedule is quite a bit tighter these days...

Squeezed in a bit of day drinking and quiet time in the yard before heading off to winter concert number two.

St. Stephen's church is one of my favorite places to sing.  So beautiful, and so much ring to the sound.  I will certainly miss singing this repertoire.  I already miss the ease of singing music from memory, as we jump into learning the Bach Magnificat and I continue to trudge through learning Italian for Othello... Why is it that I have no free time again?

Because life is always full of ups and downs, our beautiful  weekend ended with Nat being hit by a stomach bug.  Followed by three days of nervously awaiting who would be next...  So far so good.  We are not out of the woods, but we are getting back to normal life and eating dinner as a family again.  

Got out for a run with one of my favorite people.  It was a crazy stroke of luck to attend that Boss Dog group run 3 years ago, and meet Eugenia.  We've not run together for almost a year but the conversation picked up right where we left off and she made me run up a bunch of hills.  I have missed her energy and smile. 

Tonight a strange thing happened.  Our kids actually *played* together. Somehow Jack tormenting his sister at the dinner table with his new lightsaber turned into playing baseball with a lightsaber and a raggedy old dog toy, then playing baseball with two lighsabers and a less raggedy dog toy, then heading outside for a good half hour of battling in the dark.  Just lilke the sunshine, you soak up things like this when you can.

February Love

Happy (belated) Valentine's Day, my loves. There's just no excuse for being this far behind on blog updates, with all the snow days and three day weekends around here. And yet here we are, with me trying to remember what in the world the first half of February was like...

I think at some point there were cookies.

And the sweetest homemade valentimes.  Look at my Luminary, handcrafted by my honey...

I was so pleased with the way the kids' valentine's came out.  Little books with 24 of their character traits inside.  I'm sure they'll never look at it again but the work of making tiny books (sewn together, even!) was entirely repaid by the looks on their faces as they read about themselves.  Ivy said, "I could never have come up with that many words about me."  

Also pictured in the background-- another thing we did in the first half of February:  the Olympics!   The two weeks every two years when we have the TV on 24/7.  I just love the Olympics. 

Jack admired the construction of the book pocket and I took that as high praise.

Because Valentine's Day fell on a Monday this year, we celebrated on Sunday. Because our kids don't like to get up before 11 anymore on the weekends, we had special day breakfast for dinner.  Ivy even came in her robe, so it felt very authentic and was very nice. 

The kids's gifts this year-- giant "bon bons" full of candy, cash and a gift card.

There were some other days besides Valentine's Day this month, too.  Here are some the really good ones:

Swim Team sectionals!  I can't believe how fast this season went. It's been such fun to watch Jack grow as a swimmer and a student-athlete, and to be at the meets, cheering and enjoying our community.  Sectionals was no exception.  An hour drive each way, 6 hours in uncomfortable bleacher seats in a hot noisy room-- and we had a great time all day.

Our Heights parent section was one of the biggest there- and also the only one where everyone was masked.  Easy to tell your Heights peeps in a crowd of people from exurbia.  

We cheered raucously for every single Heights swimmer, to the point that my voice was hoarse.  We cheered extra loudly for our boys 200 Free relay team, who set a new sectionals record!

Jack swam the 200 IM and the 100 Breast and set a new PR in each, by 10 seconds and 4 seconds respectively.  I am just so proud of how hard he worked this season.

Plus he's the cutest, isn't he??

 We had TWO snow days the week before Valentine's day!!  What??  You know you've got extra time on your hands when you are posing Playmobil figurines in the snow for photo shoots. 

And also with a cat, of course.

Have I ever mentioned that I love my husband??

Friday we went and spent the afternoon and early evening with our friends, then left Ivy with her besties while Nat and I skiied.  A win for everyone.

More gathering with friends:  Time with Alex and Amanda and their families... and baby Charlie of course!  My heart. 

It's Orchid Season at the Gardens and we are always in for that.  Nat and I previewed the show on our own then came back to show it to my mom. 

When you get a sunny day in the frozen tundra of Cleveland, you go to the lake.  

Nat and I got to see Jesus Christ Superstar-- two years after we were scheduled to do so!  We missed seeing this show by a week in 2020... So glad they "resurrected" it to finish the tour.  It was a fabulous production, with unique staging and amazing vocals. 

The experience was even better because one of our friends played in the orchestra for the show-- from a loge box right near us!  

More skiing.  This season can't compete with 2021- we will probably never have a ski season like that again.  Hopefully not, actually, because the only way we got out 28 times last year was because there was literally nothing else going on in the shut-down world. But we've been out more than 10 times this season which is not too shabby.  We've found a few timing sweet-spots to avoid lines, and now that we have adjusted our expectations and gotten used to the shoddy management by Vail Resorts, we've begun to really enjoy ourselves.  The kids, who have turned into tween/teen sloths and who prefer to lay about in their rooms at all times, haven't been out quite as often as Nat and I.  Sometimes its just not worth the effort to bring someone along who's going to mope and complain the whole time.  I mean, I do enough complaining myself if the lines are long or the conditions aren't exactly to my liking (when a perfectionist goes skiing....)so I don't need anyone adding to it! 

This guy will always be my very favorite ski buddy. He keeps me smiling.

We also visited the Home and Garden show.  2020 was on our minds again with this, as the show that year was the last "mass gathering" event we attended, just a few days before schools were closed down, and it was cancelled last year.   Apparently we weren't the only ones who missed it, as it was packed.  But our assembled kiddos had a blast wandering around on their own (so grown up!) and we got lots of time to chat with our friends. Plus I am a sucker for model homes and fancy sheds.  We dreamed of summer and spent tens of thousands of dollars in our heads.  Great way to enjoy a Saturday!

In spite of the unending snow that makes everything 23% harder, there's been a lot to love about February so far!