Winter was no big deal this year. Then two big snow storms hit, and the wind came, and it was cold. Well, at least we had some snow to play with. I built a sledding hill on our patio, and the girls cruised down it on baking sheets.
I built the hill after the first storm and added to it after the second. That storm started late Saturday night and continued until about noon on Sunday. At 6:30 in the morning, Jill work me up to tell me that we could sleep in, since we wouldn't be able to get to church. I was confused (um, why did you wake me up to tell me this?).
Our church didn't cancel services, but we declared a family snow day.
One of the families in our small group is from northern Minnesota. The wife's mother was staying with them for the winter. At our small group, she said that it's colder in Urbana than in Duluth. Despite the -25 degree temperatures in Duluth, it still feels warmer than 5ish degrees in Urbana, thanks to the steady [cold!] winds here.
I can't tell you how proud I am of this comment. Our hometown has just about the worst weather in the country! We may not have interesting topography or varied flora, but the weather is really something. Come visit anytime!
Hey look below, here is our patio on March 14, Janny's birthday. It's still a bit wet. I was able to scrape the remainder of the sledding hill off earlier in the morning, but it wasn't quite warm enough to dry the melt water yet.
The usual cast of kids from church and the neighborhood came to Janny's party for some cupcakes and pinata breaking. I felt smart that I pre-distressed the pinata a bit this year. We only had to go through the line once before it was about to break open (the bigger kids at the end of the line did the work before Janny finished it off).
Jill pushed back barbie acquisition at least until Christmas. Instead, Janny got some very fun hotwheels cars and track (see behind her in the picture). These are much more fun for me and Jill.
Some common Janny sayings lately:
Mommy I can't [do something]... WAIT! I can!
Mommy [or Daddy], I'm hungry. [This is said either when she's laying in bed for bedtime, or about 30 minutes after we've finished eating a meal]
Mommy, will you play with me?
Our basketball season was cut one week short when a last second put-back by Luke bounced around on the rim and ultimately rolled out as the buzzer sounded. Had it gone in, we win. Instead, the game went to overtime, and we ultimately lost. The next tournament game would have been against the undefeated Stone Creek, who beat us by about 30 a few weeks before. So I didn't feel that we missed out.
The season as a whole was a struggle. We won only one game, beating the winless team in the league. A few games were close, but many were not. We had trouble scoring, and our defense was poor.
But a couple of ideas brightened my feelings about the season. First, there were only 6 teams in the league. In softball, there are about 30 teams over the 4 different levels. So instead of thinking that we were 2nd to last, instead I think of it as 5th place. Quite respectable!
Second, Tom Z from church shared some encouragement before church one Sunday. We had played together in church league during my grad school days [he seems to have retired some years ago]. A friend of his on the 4th place team told him something like 'TCBC is decent. They have some older guys that are pretty good.' Thanks?
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