Family Alive

Brian’s now on Twitter, @BrianToone, as am I, @beautifulwife. (Sidenote: my username was actually kind of a joke… it was how he directed comments at me on Facebook, and he dared me to see if it was available on Twitter.  It was, so the name stuck!)

He’s tweeted about some Topocreator.com maps he’s created on his website for the season’s first big pro cycling race, the Tour Down Under.  He was excitedly telling me this evening that he’s even got a follower on Twitter from Australia.  I chuckled and told him it was probably a spammer, just wanting to get followers from being on his follower list.  He puffed up and said, “I’ve only got 19 followers, and they’re all important to me.  Don’t you talk bad about any of them!”

I promise, if you follow Brian on Twitter, he will appreciate you!

It’s crazy – I just looked at my blog post about Josiah pulling the toilet paper all the way out into the living room, and I posted it because it was so funny to me at the time yesterday morning – but it almost made me sick just now after clicking our blog link in such close proximity to reading a BBC story and video about possibly more than 100,000 people killed in the earthquake there and an email from Compassion International about the 65,000 compassion children (1/3rd of which live in the Port au Prince area) whose lives will never be the same – if they are still even alive. It puts everything in perspective.

Jesus we don’t have $50, actually all we have is a massive debt so here it is anyway…
http://www.compassion.com/

Well – this is what happened when Josiah went to the bathroom by himself while I was making a taco for lunch. He unrolled the toilet paper all the way into the living room because he couldn’t tear it (well, at least that’s what he said!)

Which snack is for Josiah? Which is for Analise? http://tinyurl.com/yb75qrp

Tea party on the trampoline inside the dora tent. http://tinyurl.com/ye6lhzp

Today it actually snowed! Analise had school anyway but with a 2 hour delay. That set up a fun adventure for us as we had already decided to bike to school this morning. The air temp was 15F when we left and 17F by the time Josiah and I made it home after dropping off Analise, but we were having so much fun we barely noticed the cold.

Analise doing a warm-up lap in our driveway

Josiah doing a warm-up lap in our driveway

Snowy street this AM

Biking together on the way to drop off Analise off at school

Josiah in heavy snow

Josiah almost all the way back home – a little cold by this point

Well, the weather changed just the slightest bit today and that led to practically no snow for us! Still we had fun being together as a family and watching the few periods of falling snow before Kristine left tonight to head to Anniston for a two-day work event. Check out the pics and video from today’s near miss snow-event:

Close-up of some accumulating snow granules

Accumulation on the back porch where sleet had bounced off our awning

Falling snow – front bush

Just 2 weeks ago, we were quietly getting snowed in for Christmas in Wisconsin. It was beautiful, and in the end, no big deal. 14″ of snow, and life went on (though west of us, it was much more of a blizzard). Last week, it was snowing as we were leaving Indiana, and it kept snowing and snowing and snowing after we left on New Year’s Day. After it was all said and done, they got 21″ of snow over 5 days. Whew!

Here we are at about 20degrees outside, in an “Arctic Blast” (supposedly not going over freezing for 100+ hours. Wow… and not so impressive to those of you that haven’t seen freezing in a month!!). Tomorrow we’re forecasted to get 1-2″ of snow. After our Christmas vacation… no big deal. But in Alabama, it is a big deal. School’s canceled for tomorrow at 4pm. So funny!

A couple other random notes…

Monday I cooked this delicious tomato soup, with delicious melty Wisconsin grilled cheese sandwiches.    And as Brian was dipping his sandwich in the creamy goodness, he said, “Wow… this is so, so good!”  “That’s amazing,” I said, “because I didn’t even like tomato soup until this week!”  “Mmm, this is as good as Campbell’s!”  Huh.  What a compliment.

Believe it or not, the kids ate it, even though they supposedly don’t like soup.  Josiah eats tomatoes all. the. time.  So when I gently convinced him that it was really tomatos, he was all in.  He didn’t like dipping his sandwich, though.  Analise had to be reminded that she likes spaghetti sauce, so this really was the same thing.  She gamely tried 2 bites of her sandwich dipped into it, but decided she didn’t like it.  I’ll take that, though, as I didn’t like it until Monday!

Tuesday, I used a bottle of Trader Joe’s Yellow Curry Sauce that I’ve had for a long time.  I sauteed some chicken, added some coconut milk (bc I’d read that mellows curry flavor somewhat, and I’m not a huge curry fan), added the sauce and let it simmer for about 20 minutes.  Served it with brown rice, stir fry veggies and Naan bread.  It was great! Brian said, “This is as good as Surin!” (our favorite Indian restaurant).  Huh.  What a discerning palate  my hubby has!  But I’ll keep him… so glad he enjoys my food, because I enjoy cooking for him!

The kids had grilled chicken and rice, and they were intrigued that ours was yellow.  Brian explained it was Indian, and Analise wanted to know know why there was Indian food.  “Because Indian’s have to eat, too!” was his quick response.

We had an awesome winter wonderland trip visiting friends and family. The map above shows the places we visited on our return trip as well as the snow cover on the ground.

We left Shell Lake, WI on Tuesday driving across the state to Green Bay, WI to visit Kristine’s roommate from college and her family. We had a great time at Chuck-E-Cheese with Dena and Dan and their two kids (Derrick and Delia). Rick and Robin also joined in the fun at Chuck-E-Cheese as we tried to win tickets and played video games. Snow was in the forecast for Wednesday and sure enough, it started to snow pretty good as we left to head down to La Porte, IN to visit Kristine’s Grandma for New Year’s Eve.

It snowed pretty much the entire way, and it was a little bit dangerous because our wipers are not working so well from all the snow and grit. We made it and as you can tell from the map, they were already under a blanket of Lake Effect snow with another big storm coming in Thursday and Friday. We had a great time visiting family and bringing in the new year quietly before our return trip home to Alabama the next day. The snow started before we left, and we got to enjoy one last blast of snow before heading back down to Alabama … where it is supposed to snow this Thursday!!! Check out all the pictures and video below:

Lake effect snow in Indiana!

Scout Island, Shell Lake, WI

An ice fishing hut, Shell Lake, WI

Not quite thick enough to drive cars on, Shell Lake, WI

With an air temp of -10F, your breath freezes instantly onto your beard

Friends from college at UW Green Bay – Kristine, Robin, and Dena

Josiah, Derrick, and Analise hanging out on the jeep

Analise and Derrick danced in front of the camera for a while at Chuck-E-Cheese

I helped Josiah drive this snow mobile game

I worked the accelerator while Analise steered. She ended up turned around and going the wrong way!

Partially frozen Green Bay – I went for a 60 mile ride in VERY cold temps – probably felt the coldest at the end of this ride from all my rides

Lake effect snow falling for my last bike ride of the trip from La Porte, IN to New Buffalo, MI.

I parked my bike here and hiked the rest of the way up the boardwalk across the top of a small sand dune on Lake Michigan in New Buffalo, MI

The view of the rest of the boardwalk

A large floating piece of ice full of sea gulls

This ride was so cold that my water bottle froze and then all the gator-ice accumulated at the top as I tried to shake it down repeatedly into my mouth. I was so thirsty!

So cold leaving La Porte, the windows were freezing on the inside!

Today we had another fun adventure – ice skating! We had errands to run in Rice Lake (about 20 miles away), so we worked it out for me to bike down there on some nice backroads for a good 32 mile ride. It was COLD. The air temps were in the lower teens, but the wind was just unbelievable. I only had Kristine’s iphone with me to take these pictures, otherwise I would have taken video of the snow blowing across the road at 20mph. The outdoor ice skating pond was in not so good shape after the rain on Christmas day. It has been super cold since then, but the ice wasn’t very even.

Ice Skating Princesses

	My favorite picture of Analise and Kristine, the ice princesses
	Analise the ballerina ice skater
	We didn’t exactly follow instructions, but they were getting ready to take down the signs anyway (we saw a bunch of people ice skating on it after lunch)
	Three clips together here … Analise and Kristine almost wipe out at the end.
	Refueling at a midwestern favorite – Culver’s
	Josiah and me
	In Wisconsin – cheese is an art!

Mountain Biking Adventure

	Here’s the annotated topocreator route.
	Lots of long straight flat icy snowy roads – the challenge is finding a smooth line and riding as fast as you can without falling
	Some curvy roads too
	Some very icy roads – this is the stuff you want to avoid
	A huge snow plow for Walker (part 1 of 3)
	A huge snow plow for Walker (part 2 of 3)
	A huge snow plow for Walker (part 3 of 3)
	The view from the high point of the ride
	Blowing snow – the windchill was incredible. There was one part of the ride where the wind was blowing hard from the side and being funneled right into my eye by my sunglasses. I had to turn to look into the wind because my eyeball felt like it was starting to freeze!
	Snow drifts
	Rice Lake – the cool thing about this picture is the island with a picnic table only in the winter (or by boat in the summer)
	Ski-do anyone?
	My mountain bike at the ice rink
	An icy version of me at the ice rink.

Wind skiing

This was awesome to watch. Unfortunately my batteries died right before this guy took off … literally. He got going very fast and then jumped at least 8 feet in the air with the windsail taking him up and setting him back down. I got a new set of batteries in just in time for him to make it back. How cool!!!

We had a fun skiing and biking adventure today. A friend of the Cardwell’s organized a small skiing outing with a couple different families. I decided to do a longer mountain bike ride and meet them out at the trailhead to take some pictures. Went great except that Josiah was still feeling sick with a probable ear infection and stayed home with Grandma Sandy. Before dinner, Kristine and Grandma Sandy and the kids went over to some of our most faithful blog readers Judy and Alison Ricci. Here are the pictures and videos that tell the story.

Friends

Hanging out with Alison and Judy Ricci

Skiing

	Analise, the ski princess getting ready to head out for a long ski
	Heading back down the trail after a long ski
	Trying to catch snow flakes while Mommy looks very cold and Dale and Molly ski ahead
	Being towed along at the very end – quite a workout for Kristine!

Biking

	I rode from Shell Lake to Spooner onto a fun road called Roundhouse Rd. I saw the dinner train where we had quite a fun adventure two years ago.
	Roundhouse Rd – typical snow covered rd from the ride
	The end of the line for this train – snow covered tracks
	Christmas decorations out in the country beyond Spooner
	Snow mobilers – I saw lots of them on this fine Sunday afternoon
	Snow mobilers alongside the road
	Horses in the snowy countryside
	Beautiful shell lake – over 3 miles across. I am hoping to bike across it tomorrow or Tuesday
	I’ve ridden in cold weather before, but this is the first time I’ve had ice freeze to my knees!
	Self-portrait about 3/4 of the way through the ride. Temps in the teens with slushy, salty, dirty snow kicked up on my face

Ton of snow here!!!