February

 Clara and I attended a Frostival event at the Hjemkomst Center. We were able to do a lighted walk along the river path, roast marshmallows for s'mores and Clara participated in an event (which seemed rather barbaric and from Medieval times) called gagaball. Clara recognized it right away and Brynn later even said she knew of it as a camp game. I had never heard of it before, but Clara had fun doing that for a bit while I kept warm near one of the fire pits. 

We had to walk through the museum to  get to the outside festivities. But, the Viking ship is always fun to see.

We celebrated Hubert's birthday (which was on February 9th) with dinner at Applebee's. 

Brynn baked and decorated a Spiderman cake for him. It turned out so great!

Aww, a little something (scraps. haha) for us. Dana and I were chatting with her while she was decorating. 

Happy 16th birthday to Hubert!

We had gotten Hubert tickets to a Force game on the night of his birthday, so he and Brynn went to that.

....and so did Dana, John and Clara. :-D Christel and John came up for a weekend visit.

They did some skating downtown as well. Thanks to John for these pics. I'm a skier, not a skater, so I hung back at home and got some stuff done.

We did tune into the Super Bowl...I'm in the camp of "here for the halftime show, food and commercials." We made nachos and munched in front of the TV.

The girls helped me put together some treats boxes and chocolate covered strawberries for a Valentine's fundraiser for our United Way campaign at my work.

The girls got some treats and cards from Daddy.

Brynn's loot from Hubert.

I had signed up to volunteer at another United Way event and this time Clara was able to accompany me. We were putting together cake kits that the food bank will hand out so people can celebrate birthdays and other occasions with a cake. She did a great job. They held it at West Acres, played music and it was a good set-up. In total with all the volunteers, we put together 575 kits!

The kids had early out from school on Friday (and Monday off), so I took the day off and so did Dana. We had ourselves a lovely brunch date at Randy's Diner.

Clara and I bummed around downtown together for the afternoon.

(In the Hjemkomst gift shop. Haha)

She had seen these puppet animals when we were at the Hjemkomst for the Frostival event, so she wanted to come back with her money and get one. This is the angora rabbit she chose and named Agora. Her long hair was really blowing in the breeze outside. We were giggling at it.

We checked out a new sweets shop that also sold other fun things...like these 3D printed dragons.

We had to hit up Zandbroz again.

We tuckered ourselves out.

Saturday we celebrated Elise's birthday (she turned 15 on the 5th) with lunch at Olive Garden, an escape room (which they did escape from within their time limit!), shopping at the mall, rock climbing and fun times at Grandpa and Grandma's lake.

Brianna's birthday is right before Elise's so we sang to both of them. Happy birthday, girls! 💜💜

We came back through Lake Park and dropped Clara off with Grandpa and Grandma on Sunday, and Brynn, Hubert and I continued on to Detroit Mountain for more skiing and snowboarding. It was a gorgeous day!

Clara was able to spend the night as the kids had Monday off of school for President's Day. 

Dad had the day off today as well and so once Clara returned home, she made scones and then they went four-wheeling.