Skiing (and Baking!) with the Siegers

We were very excited a few weeks ago that the Siegers were able to make a trip up to New Hampshire from Long Island to visit us!  Aiden's and Emma's school breaks overlapped for just one weekend, so we were able to take advantage of that time for some winter fun.  Friday was pretty rainy, but Emma and Peter braved ski lessons and later Emma, Aiden, Melanie and I headed to King Arthur Flour for a family cooking class.  We made chicken pot pie, apple crumble pie, and salad- none of which the kids were really that interested in eating (save for the apple pie, perhaps) but they had a good time helping us prepare it nonetheless.  And the adults were only too happy to eat that yummy, buttery, chicken pie.  Melanie is a baker, so I knew she would love the KAF store, and she heaped up a big bag of goods to take with her back to NY.  While we were indulging in culinary arts, they boys took Peter and Haley to the pub.  They had a good time sampling craft brews, even though the kids were "loud" in the restaurant.  Minor problems when you have beer and burgers.

Goofballs at KAF

Mixing the pie dough

Saturday was a bluebird day, and relatively warm (30s!) and springlike.  We took full advantage and skied a full day at Sunapee with the kids.  Emma and Peter did really well... both improved tremendously over the full day, and even more importantly, both were all smiles and not wanting to quit at the end of the day.  Aiden and Andy practiced their snowboarding on the magic carpet, and of course we had to get chocolate covered waffles for a mid-day break.  The kids vegged out with a movie in the evening, and the adults grabbed forks and dug back into that delicious chicken pie from Friday!  We had such a great time with the Siegers... anyone else want to come visit us?!

Casualties (on purpose)

Waffles!

Cousin-buds in their ski boots

The cool gang

The Harriers

Aiden recently joined a New Hampshire young birder's club called The Harriers.  Basically you join for a small fee and receive a signed Stokes field guide and field notebook, and then can attend a wide range of bird related field trips all over NH and coastal Mass.  On Saturday we took our first field trip with the Harriers, to the Parker River National Wildlife Refuge on Plum Island to look for Snowy Owls.  It was a beautiful windless morning, cloudy but warm enough to be very comfortable outside standing still for good periods of time.  When we arrived, we hit the beach first, where Aiden got his first lifers of the day, a white-winged scoter and an oldsquaw.  Then a huge bald eagle promptly flew right over our heads and out over the surf!

When the group assembled, we headed out the refuge road and it was less than a minute before we spied our first Snowy Owl, perched atop a swallow nest box out in the marsh.  We scoped him for a good while, and then headed out to the Hellcat tower to see what we could see there.  Another Snowy Owl awaited us from an osprey platform, as well as a short eared owl and a rough legged hawk!  Another trip to the the beach yielded razorbill, black scoter, horned grebe, common loon, and a big flock of snow buntings.  Aiden had a great day, but Andy and I are secretly even more excited about this young birders club than Aiden is.  The reason?  We can finally go birding again, with other people even, and not have to worry about whether others will be annoyed that our kids are there, running around, maybe paying attention to birds, but also maybe throwing sticks in the water or digging in the sand or otherwise goofing around.  Yesterday was probably the best birding day we've had in years, so we are all looking forward to more adventures with the Harriers.

Haley declares routinely that she is NOT a birder

On the beach at Plum Island

After our birding, we headed over to Gloucester to meet our new niece and cousin, Finna Stevie Dean.  She is a tiny little cutie, sleepy all the time still (thankfully for M&B).  The kids marveled at their tiny new cousin for a few minutes (Haley got to hold her after mass amounts of hand sanitizer were applied) and then were off with their older cousins playing around the house.  Aiden got a tour of Uncle Micah's office at Mass Division of Marine Fisheries (thrilling if you are a 7 year old boy obsessed with fishing) which included many tanks full of sea creatures and a "beetle tank" where Micah and his co-workers throw dead fish and roadkilled birds and mammal in to be eaten, leaving only the immaculately cleaned bones, which they put up on a display shelf.  Kind of a Far Side type of working environment, if you ask me...

Little Finna

Haley and Finna

Selfie of Mom and Aiden snowshoeing at Kezar Lake

Through the Wringer

We've been sick.  All of us, with one thing or another.  I've had some sort of evil pneumonia, which has sucked the energy to do anything but just continue with basic life functions for several weeks now.  Finally, I think I am on the mend, after the good part of one month spent on antibiotics.  The kids have had all manner of cough and snot viruses, and Andy had a doozy as well, losing his voice and leaving him miserable for a week or so.  In this time, we've made it to work and school (on and off) and fed ourselves, but not much else.  No house cleaning.  No exercise for the dog.  No blogging.  Not much fun at all, really.

 Skiing with Fisher and Phoebe in mid-January, the day before their new sister was born! (and before we were really sick)

Cozy cove for Wonder Pets! viewing

 Things are looking up now, though.  Last weekend Haley was healthy enough to have a ski lesson, and we made it outside for an hour or so for New London's Winter Carnival dinner and fireworks.  The weather has mellowed out too- temps are up from the frigid way-below-zero days we'd been having, and 30 degrees Farenheit feels like room temperature now.  Today we're having a snowday- the kids are home from school with over a foot of snow coming down over the course of the day, but even that is better than -15.

Haley and her friend Ellis skiing at Ragged Mt.

The positives:  while house-bound with the subzero weather and our illnesses, we've spent a lot of time daydreaming and studying up on Costa Rica's birds for our trip in April.  Aiden's been reading up on the fish species he might catch.  A lovely mixed flock consisting of dozens of robins, cedar waxwings and purple finches have been camped out in the crabapple tree right outside our big front window for the past week.  We've set up the spotting scope and have thoroughly enjoyed mornings watching the birds flit around and attempt to swallow crabapples as big as their heads.  We're all looking forward to two weeks of watching the Olympics too, and maybe, just possibly, getting outside a bit more.  Wish us luck.

New London Winter Carnival

Ice Skating Party

At our New Years' party, Haley looked up at us with those big blue eyes and said, "Are any of my friends coming?"... aww, poor bean.  So we decided it was time again to organize something fun with her friends from Windy Hill.  Haley picked an ice skating party, on Friday night after Windy Hill.  The rink on the town green is open to anyone, and has lights after 5 pm, so it was a perfect meeting spot.  Plus, it is conveniently located right across the street from two pizza joints, so dinner was solved too.

We sent out an email invite, and a lot of Haley's friends came.  I don't think very many of them had tried ice skating before (Haley certainly hadn't really), and they learned that it was much harder than it looks to balance and propel yourself on thin little steel blades, but also that it was just as much fun to slide on the ice in  your boots and whack a puck around with small hockey sticks.  One of Aiden's friends from Mrs. Knapp's class showed up unexpectedly too, so he was happy to skate around with him.  All in all it was a successful skating party, with pizza and ice cream to finish it off.

Over the weekend, we got in Haley's last swim lesson at UVAC (she's passed all the levels for 3 year olds), Aiden's guitar lesson, and a nice lunch at Yama.  Aiden got a new fish (a betta) and we even made it to Mt. Sunapee for a few hours of skiing and snowboarding on Sunday.  Aiden and Andy are trying to master the magic carpet on snowboards before they try the chairlifts, and Beany and I work on her snowplow turns and stopping on the smaller bunny hill.  It's a learning year on the mountain for us, I think.  No more summit rides for a bit, but we are still having fun.  Plus there are waffle huts at both Sunapee and Ragged this season... what more could we ask for than a crunchy, chewy belgian waffle hot off the iron and drizzled in dark chocolate after a day on the slopes.  Mmmm...

This is haley after every skiing adventure

Not sure what they are doing with all the sticks

Molly and Aiden on a hike

Xmas "vacation" Week 2

Grandma Chris came to save us from having to take a second week off work while the kids are still out of school.  Actually, Aiden had a sports camp to go to, but there are no camp options for kids as young as Haley, so we really needed the help.  Haley and Grandma Chris spent all day every day together, Haley chatting incessantly about princesses and ponies and whatever else was going on in her head, and Grandma Chris just listening and chuckling most of the time.  Haley is pretty entertaining to shadow for a day.  Or five.

Haley in her Princess Sofia dress

There were tea parties EVERY day, of course, and lots of arts and craft activities.  On New Years Eve, we went over to the Anderson's house for dinner and then came home well before midnight.  The only two party animals to watch the ball drop at midnight were Grandma Chris and Aiden!  For the first day of 2014, which was absolutely frigid, we decided to go see Frozen at Smitty's Cinema in Tilton.  Smitty's is kind of like a combo restaurant/movie theater where you sit in big oversized chairs and order pub food while watching your movie.  We had never been there before, but I'd always wanted to try it.  Aiden (predictably) thought it was the bomb (what?  hot wings AND a movie? YEAH!) and Haley made it all the way through her first movie with only a minimum of hands over the ears and eyes anxiety during scary parts.  She did great, but I'm afraid she now has a warped sense of the "amenities" provided at movie theaters!

At Smittys

 Aiden had a good time at his camp, but he missed his new Chromebook (present from Santa) terribly during camp hours, so when he got home each day he was fairly shaking to check out new games and websites.  Obviously this level of screen-time will not last beyond the vacation week, so he'll have to go through a sort of withdrawl when he cuts back on watching YouTube offshore fishing videos and creating digital cartoons on ToonDo.  Should be interesting.  Vacation has just been extended by another day for him (icing this morning) so he's getting his fix on today too.

On Saturday we had our annual "New Years Eve" party... only this year not on New Years.  We also finally got outside towards the end of the week, when the weather at last warmed up above the single digits.  Skiing at Ragged Mountain with friends was a lot of fun, at least for Aiden and I.  Haley had a bit of a melt down on the slopes but we're hoping to turn that around as the ski season progresses.  Hopefully skiing with some of her friends will help motivate her to try it again, harness-free this year!

Post skiing crash