February fun

Valentine's day was fun and candy-full; we got 8 inches of snow last week which shut down our town for (of course) 5 days; and Grandpa came to visit! Fun times. 

And today we went to George Washington's birthplace to celebrate his 283nd birthday.

Family skate and such

Good times this weekend… Family roller skate at Stan's Skateland in nearby Montross. Monkey and Roo have come a long way in their two sessions over the past month. The progress Saturday was helped by "lessons" by the rink's own Miss Shelley. She's a 70-something whipper snapper who was a champion skater in her time - the best. She even had them work on the limbo during their lesson.

Also HF is working hard on the Hallway Expansion Project… Exciting!

KS visit

Our dear friends the Eriksens moved from WA to Kansas last spring, and Goose and I flew out for a long weekend visit with them. The flights - Richmond to Tulsa, OK through a Charlotte NC connection - went well, and Goose was a great traveller. (HF and the other 3 praycreekcrew kids held down the farm at home.)

We had last seen the Eriksens ages before in June 2011, camping in Oregon. At that time Mouse was 8 weeks old and their youngest, Thomas, hadn't yet been born (he's 3 now). We had a lovely time visiting them - playing Sleeping Queens and the piano in their house, visiting local attractions like Laura Ingalls Wilder's real-life "little house" and the zoo, watching their kid's basketball game, etc. Jo Ella and I even got a great dinner out in nearby Bartlesville, OK while Jeff watched the kids. Goose adores her godparents as much as we do (no surprise there).

And the (hall) walls come tumbling down...

MLK day project: widening the hallway. We're breaking through the wall between the den and the hallway - adding a door, opening space, installing (at the end) floor-to-ceiling bookcases. Monkey, Roo, and I assisted HF with the demo for the first couple hours and found some fun "treasures" hidden in the walls.

HF and Roo find a crushed beer can and money in the walls during demo

Before, during, and after

The great outdoors: woods wandering, ax-chopping, etc

January stuff

40th birthday party of a childhood friend of mine in DC

We got a new computer (for the kids)

Our first snow day… with 1/4 inch of snow. Roo's teeny snowman

Roo's dental work

In early January Roo needed a moral extracted and a cap put on a decayed tooth… and a filling. UGH! She had a 45-minute session and nitrous gas and did an amazing job. (Monkey now calls her "metal tooth" as a nickname, not exactly to her liking. But it is apt…)