Back To Setting An Alarm

Even when you stay home, vacations seem to fly by. February break was no exception.
A bit of bowling with the family and Riley Foreman brought in the weekend for us.



Then Monday, Jubal and I joined Aaron LaPointe, Nate Fisher and half the Hodgdon clan for a hiking supply run to Cabela's, Bean's and NorthFace. This was profitable.





Then, because I was out of my normal routine, I forgot about Jubal's driver's ed class at 6. Jubal remembered at 7. This was not profitable.
Tuesday's class was not forgotten.
The middle of the week brought kid-swapping with the Pendletons. Even after all these years, I'm quite sure that Caleb doesn't know what to think of me...
The end of vacation saw the older boys off to Blueberry Mountain for Snow Camp with the WWBC Youth Group. Jubal's first attempt at skiing ended halfway down the hill but thankfully with no lasting injuries.


Back home, the excitement was slightly less. The peak was probably Tell's attempt to wear three pair of pants simultaneously because he didn't want to decide which ones to wear. So, while sporting one pair on his legs, one pair on his arms and the third on his head, he told me very confidently, "I call myself Pantsman."


And now, as I set my alarm for 6am, our vacation officially concludes.

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Just Do It

This past weekend was Winter Blitz at Camp Good News. My excellent junior counselor, Emily Boyd reminded me during our snowshoe excursion through the woods that she was my camper at the very first Winter Blitz ever. I think this means I am increasing in age.


One of the highlights of the weekend for the kids (and Dad) is sledding down Jug Hill. Atira and her good friend Kayla Raymond quite enjoyed their many runs down the curved road, which this year was so bumpy that it resembled the Moguls at the Olympics.


I, however, do not share their enthusiasm for speeding over snow. Each year I make one run down the hill with my stomach in knots just to say I did it. I conquered my fear for the year.
After returning home on Sunday, the knots remained while I watched the Patriot's AFC Championship game against Baltimore. What an unbelievable end to the game! On to the Superbowl! We celebrated the victory and then Nolan's 13th birthday with a cake decorated by Tell and Mom.


With the week in full swing I have been consistent with my C25K program, although since all the snow and slush I have moved my workout from the outdoors to the virtual Wii world. It's not my preference but....whatever it takes to just do it!

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Slip Slidin' Away

It happens at least once every winter.....I can't make it up the driveway because of the ice and snow. Arriving home after Jubal's drop off (which had a two hour weather delay) I encountered my still unplowed driveway. I made the attempt and failed, getting the van stuck a third of the way up.





Nolan and I had quite a slippery adventure shoveling the snow off the road so the sand could be applied when Jim arrived to rescue me. With a layer of snow over the ice, both of us were slip-sliding all over the place.



Nolan ended up with a face full of snow a couple times. Am I a bad mother for laughing heartily?



Our neighbor plowman showed up while I was digging out the wheels of my van. He said he had tried to plow the hill earlier this morning. He made it halfway and then proceeded to slide backwards all the way down. I believe it! All was well once again when the sand-bearing knight arrived with a truck and a tow rope. My hero.
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There Is A Difference

On the occasion of Nolan's 13th birthday here is an inventory of the items scattered across his desk:

many random Lego bricks and one head
fully functional Lego rubberband gun
used pillar and taper candles
matches
burned Rice Krispie square
a button
wire
candy wrappers
nerds candy
mini fan
one dirty sock
thermos cover
feather
scissors
Lego magazine
nature book
empty Coke can

and for comparison, arranged in a much more organized configuration, the items on Atira's:

Minnie Mouse
2 Barbie dolls
2 hair elastics
microwaveable heat pack
decorative dish
pink leopard fabric
pencil slingshot
smiley face stickers
and several tubes of lip gloss

....boys and girls, yes, there is a difference.

Climbing the Branches

I have once again begun exploring the branches of our towering family tree, which seem to go on forever. As a child I always enjoyed hearing family stories and taking time to create small family trees, complete with birth, marriage and death dates. When I became a mother my interest grew, wanting to preserve all the uniqueness of our family for my kids to enjoy and pass on to the next generation. About 15 years ago I got the Family Tree Maker program and began to meticulously plug in all my information. Once Nolan became a toddler and Atira came along, however, my free time was dramatically reduced and it was put on the back burner. This past week the genealogy itch reappeared and I sat down to the computer to find that one of my previously favorite web sites, Ancestry.com had become even better with an online tree maker and easy access to the public trees of other members, complete with scanned documents and photos that you can instantly merge with your own. I am going to need to seriously limit myself. Genealogy is not a waste of time but it certainly is a killer of it. One of the branches that I have concentrated on in the past is that of my maternal grandmother's, the Fountains of Bristol, Maine. My grandmother doesn't remember her natural father and this is his line, so I was so pleased to find, when I picked up where my research ended a few years ago, that attached to another tree was a photo of my grandmother's father, Wilton James Fountain, when he was a young boy.


I immediately emailed a copy of it to BauBau, knowing that she had never seen a photo of her dad and would be very excited to see it. The email that I received back from her was sad but brought to mind the fact that God's timing is perfect. On the day my email was opened, her younger brother, Bobby, had died. The photo had brought a bit of sunshine into an otherwise bleak and dreary day......Genealogy is definitely not a waste of time.