This Is The Day

 With everything going on with COVID-19 this year, we decided to make the switch and send Miles to Ascension for his last year of preschool.  It's just a few blocks from our house, which makes it more convenient, plus I felt really comfortable with their protocols and being able to keep the kids safe in school.

Ascension is a Catholic school, and while I'm not Catholic, I really am loving the religious element that he is learning in school.  Little bible stories, he says a little prayer (complete with "in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit") and earlier in the year he came home singing The B-I-B-L-E, a song I remember from when I was little.

This week his school is doing virtual learning after everyone was away for the holidays.  I got to listen in on what they were doing in class and it warmed my heart to hear them start each day with the following song...

Dottie's Coat

 Dottie has her first Winter coat. :)

While it's super cute, and may happen to match mine ;)...it also serves a purpose.  Because of their brachycephalic breed, French bulldogs are really sensitive to cold.  They have a hard time regulating their body temperature, so I'm just helping to keep her warm (and adorable!).

Snowboards

 We (myself included) had so much fun snowboarding at Hannah and Bobby's house that Ryan and I decided to get the boys each a small snowboard they can use at the sledding hill.

They've never really shown much interest in skiing before, but this last time we were in Wausau was the first time they actually asked if they could learn how to ski.  So now we are super excited to get them started with it!  I LOVE skiing and can't wait to share that with them, but in the meantime these snowboards will do the trick.  

Now if only we could get some decent snow!

Wintery Walks

One of my dad's favorite things to do is to go for long walks through the woods behind his house.  It's beautiful, peaceful, and leads right to the ski hill, which is fun.  Whenever we come to Wausau I try to join him for his walk when I can.  

This walk was especially pretty because there had been a ton of fog, so all of the branches had crystals growing all over them.  It was so COOL!!

Outside Fun

 We had so much fun spending time together outside yesterday, that we decided to do it again, although this time in Hannah and Bobby's backyard with a firepit, s'mores, sleds, snowboards and a 4-wheeler.  What more could you ask for?  :)

Tubing

 Sylvan Hills is a hill in Wausau that used to be a ski hill back when I was growing up.  It was much smaller than Rib Mountain, only had tow ropes instead of chair lifts, but it was still a great time and I have tons of great memories there.

Fast forward to today and they've transformed it into a tubing hill.  I've always wanted to take the boys, but Miles hasn't been quite tall enough to ride a tube of his own....until this year!!  He and Addie finally made the cut, so we decided to meet up and go tubing.

While we waited for Hannah and her family to arrive, the boys and I went up for one quick run.  It's awesome because you grab a tube at the bottom of the hill and they attach you to a rope tow that pulls you all the way up to the top!  So easy!

We got to the top, connected our tubes together and made our first run down.  It was SO fast!!

Miles eyes were like saucers and he quickly decided he didn't want to go down again.  But then we saw Hannah's family and he agreed to go one more time with Addie.

This time all 10 of us connected our tubes together at the top.  

You can only imagine the momentum we had with all that weight coming down the hill at once.  As if it wasn't fast enough the first time, this run was even faster.  Miles and Addie wanted nothing more to do with it, which ended up being OK because the line to go back up was crazy long and would have taken at least an hour.  It's our fault for going on New Years Day, but we figured we would give it a try.

Instead we decided to go explore the woods right there, which turned out to be way more fun anyway.  It's SO pretty back there.  I couldn't help myself from taking tons of pictures.

Let's Get Back On Track!

Between three kids, a new (not so new anymore) job, and all the other craziness life has to offer I fell off the Blogging wagon...and I fell hard!  I tried to pick it back up and go back to fill in the gaps, but I always felt like I was behind and would never catch up.

So I'm going to try something new and just start from scratch in January and do my best at keeping things updated.  I LOVE looking back on the blogs and a lot of times there are things in there that I wouldn't have remembered had I not had them written down.  Sometimes it seems like a ton of work, but it is so worth it in the end.

So here we go...