More snow and Valentine's Day

This winter has been the snowiest winter! I can't remember ever getting this much snow. It's been so beautiful! Mike had some wood from a job he had to burn so he dug out the fire pit. You can tell from this picture just how deep the snow has been!

 

The girls were even having a hard time getting through that deep snow!

 

Valentine's Day is always a fun holiday for the girls because of class parties. They always come home with lots of goodies. 

 

Mike took them out the night before Valentine's Day and let them each pick out their own little gift. Allie picked a box of chocolates and a chocolate rose. Ava picked a heart filled with sweet tarts. And Hannah picked out a stuffed owl that she creatively named Val. Mike also brought the girls a heart shaped pizza for dinner on V-day!

 

I made this poster for Mike which was a lot of fun! And Mike got me a bag of candy hearts. We don't typically do anything serious for this holiday, which is fine by me!!

 

 And on another note, Mike is trying to figure out something he can build and sell during slow times. He gets pallets all the time and we thought this might be a good thing to try to sell. So we opened an Etsy account and are going to give it a whirl for a little while! This is a recycled pallet wine rack.



Life lately

Nothing has happened in our family for the past two weeks. That's the reason I haven't posted. It's not because I'm a slacker or that I'm lazy. It's that nothing has happened.

 

OK that that's not true. Lots has happened. Here some stuff according to my phone:

 

I cut bangs for Ava. She's been asking for bangs for a while since I did it for Hannah. So I finally cut them for her. I think it makes her look more like me!

 

Mike and I went to Florida! Yeah it was pretty sweet. Our very generous friends Lisa and Tom let us stay in their beautiful house in Naples. The weather was terrible but we made the most of it! We walked on the beach, rode bikes, played tennis, watched movies, slept in, shopped and ate out a lot!

 

Mike decided it would be a good idea to upgrade our rental. This was our transportation for four days.

 

We walked along the beach one evening and checked out some huge mansions on the water.

 

This was our very comfy room for four days!

 

It was so nice to get away, just the two of us! We don't get to do that often and we're grateful when we can!

 

Oh yeah, one more! 

 

Another exciting thing that happened for us is that we bought our first Dave Ramsey vehicle! We're taking a class by him right now that's about finances and how Americans are so bad with their money. It's been amazing to actually put his principles into practice! We've been saving for a few years and finally bought a new (to us) car with no car payment! And I LOVE it! The doors actually open on this van. Who woulda thought!

 

My dad, the athlete, went in for knee surgery. He's pretty amazing. At 65 he's still playing hockey! But his knee has been bothering him for a long time so he got a partial knee replacement. He's doing great and has been healing well!

 

He only had to use this walker the day he had his surgery. Hannah loved climbing on it!

 

So that's life for now. Friday is Valentine's Day, which the girls enjoy. Mike and I are going out with the Gray's and Feullings. Since Tonya won our last weight loss challenge, she's cashing in her winnings with dinner on VDay! And we're onto another challenge, which will end in May. And if we all hit our goal weight loss, we're going on an overnight trip somewhere! Only competition can get me motivated. Sheesh.

 

Next week is also winter break and the girls get a week off, so we're hoping to come up with some fun and inexpensive things to do!