Lina

The weekend of January 19th was Lina’s last weekend with us. We had an amazing year and already miss her a lot. Before we took her to the airport on Saturday, she, Sophie and I went into Center City to march in the (now annual) Women’s March down the Parkway. We marched with a group of girls from Girls Inc., a nonprofit whose board I sit on.

It was a really chilly day, but also a lot of fun. We started at Love Park and marched with hundreds of others to the steps of the art museum.

The next day was MLK Day and the Philadelphia Girls Choir was invited to sing at a lunch event for the Philadelphia Martin Luther King, Jr. Association for Nonviolence. In attendance was mayor Kenney, governor Wolf, lieutenant governor Fetterman, and state senator Casey. It was a pretty impressive crowd and the girls did not disappoint. They performed three songs from their season last year.

After Lina left, Dave’s parents have officially taken over care of the kids before and after school. They arrive in the morning before I leave to finish getting them together and out the door, and pick them up in the afternoons to take them to their various activities and help with homework. The transition has gone incredibly smoothly and it’s great to have them here every day.

It’s mid-February and I’m officially done with winter. January felt like it was 147 days long. But we’ve been keeping busy trying to enjoy all of the fun things about winter (which I keep having to remind myself exist).

Dave has taken the girls skiing several times and we did a ski weekend with some friends in the Poconos. Both girls are getting pretty good and both really love it, which is great (Dave is in heaven). I’m still happily sitting inside with my book by the fire 😉

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Here’s Sophie helping Lauren get her ski legs at Spring Mountain.

We also had to say good bye to our au pair, Lydia, who ended her year with us in January. It was so sad to see her go. The girls were pretty bummed, especially Sophie. But, just days later we welcomed Lina, our new au pair from Sweden who will be with us the entire year. The first two weeks were a tough transition for the kids, but I think we’re all settled in now.

Here’s Sophie and Lina

Philly has been consumed with Eagles fever. On February 4th they won the Super Bowl, the first time the team has ever won, beating the Patriots, who won the last five yeas. It’s pretty much the only thing people are talking about and the media is covering. Last week Philly had a celebratory parade, which was just nuts. The City pretty much shut down and hundreds of thousand of people came in to watch the team parade down Broad Street.

Here we are all wearing our Eagles gear. And a the best shot I could get of the parade. The city was just a sea of people and it was impossible to get close to Broad Street. People were climbing anything and everything they could to get a good view.

At the beginning of February Lauren decided that she wanted to get her hair cut again – very short this time. She loves it, and so do it – no brushing drama!