skiing

December 28, 2023

Happy 11th Birthday, Lauren!

Three days after Christmas we celebrated Lauren’s 11th birthday! Dave took her, Sophie and her friend Michelle skiing. Despite the terrible conditions they had a lot of fun. Sophie switched over to snowboarding last winter and according to Dave, she’s really picked it up. They both really love it.

That night we all went out to dinner at her favorite Mexican restaurant in Manayunk. Lauren’s friend Naomi joined us and then had a sleepover. Overall, it was a pretty good birthday!

Since Lauren’s birthday always falls during the school break and a lot of friends are away, this year we had her birthday party with friends the first weekend in January. She decided that she wanted to do something at an arcade, so we went to Dave and Busters. Talk about stimulation overload! She had a blast and it was exactly what she wanted.

Like me, she likes to stretch her birthday celebrations for as along as possible. We did a pretty good job this year 🙂

December 30, 2022

Happy 10th Birthday, Lauren!

Two days after Christmas we got loaded up and headed to New York for a few days of skiing. We got an Airbnb in between Hunter and Windham mountains with the Morris and Townsend families. We also celebrated Lauren’s 10th birthday while we were there. On the 28th we had a little party with pizza and cake and a competitive game of Kids Against Maturity.

While Ally and I hung at the house enjoying some quiet time, Crystal and the dads took the kids for three days of skiing. According to Dave, Sophie and Lauren have been doing really well and they both “graduated” to ski poles.

Unfortunately there was one pretty big mishap. Crystal was taken out doing down the mountain and hit her face on John’s ski boot. She broke her nose and hand and will need surgery to fix both when they get home. She’s been a trooper, but was out for the count the rest of the week.

February 11, 2018

The Beginning of 2018

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!