One Snowy Day

Although it was a mild winter compared to last year we will still had at least one big snowfall that kept everyone at home to take advantage of some winter fun. We had to make sure the girls were properly outfitted in the winter gear they received for Christmas.  The only remaining question is still, whose blood flows stronger in their veins - New England or California?

This winter we tried out a new hill nearby.  It's not our usual Shriner's spot, but apparently it is a hill that locals have sledded on for decades.  Callie and Reese chose to spend more of their time on a smaller hill with Harper and Kennedy, but John and Sarah took more than a few runs on the bigger hill that had the added element of danger - a creek at the foot of it that could prove problematic if you couldn't slow down.

All told we got 17 inches in two different major snowfalls this year.  And we always feel it is necessary to take official measurements to prove to friends and family who don't think of Kentucky as a place that would get much snow.  This snowfall of course caused us again to realize again just how long our driveway is, and that it truly would be good for us to get a second shovel.

The one major perk of a long driveway and a lot of snow is you can make a very big pile in your backyard and create your own sledding hill.  We have begun to perfect our approach at this point, so that we have a ladder built into the hill so the girls can get to the top, a jump, and an embankment at the bottom to prevent sledders from crashing into the brick landscaped garden.  Callie and Reese had a blast.  We'll have to see what we can do next winter to top it.

Swim Lessons and Fish

Since the fall, we have been religiously going to the YMCA pool every Saturday morning for swim lessons.  After last summer we decided that we were done with having to watch the girls every second we were around water.  It is an important life skill, that's for sure.  Unfortunately we can't say that Saturday mornings were made easy with this additional activity, and it also didn't help that more often than not the girls were less than cooperative.

So we did what every good parent would do and we bribed them.  For our family, the bribe took the form of our first family pet - fish.  The girls had to each have three straight drama free Saturday mornings in order to qualify for their prize.  Amazingly enough, it happened by early December.  Of course, we seldom take action too quickly, and certainly couldn't get anything before we left town for the holidays, so we jumped into 2016 in January.

However, our lack of fish expertise quickly revealed itself when we discovered we would have to set up the tank and have the water ready for a few weeks before we actually got the fish.  Still, the girls were excited every step of the way and even found the simple task of pouring water into the tank worth a close look.

We commemorated the occasion with a fish photo, since there were no actual fish present to make their own faces.  We are happy to report that a week or two later we returned to the pet store and picked up two fine fish, named Bob and Alena.  The names were selected before the fish were chosen, which is why Bob is a female Dalmation Molly and Alena is a male Mickey Mouse Platy.  Both are in the tropical community fish family, which means we could have up to five of them in a 10-gallon tank if we so chose.  Up to this point, that choice has not been made.