How to remain an optimist while spending an hour in traffic with your destination in sight.

1. Refrain from looking at the clock. This is imperative.

2. Be thankful that you remembered to bring reading materials for the kids, who, upon seeing the destination, want to know if we’re almost there. (And not just a Highlights or a Garfield book. Something meaty that will last a while.)

3. Revel in the warmth of the car, especially if you have heated seats. There’s no way that you’d be this warm at home!

4. Remember that you’re out of the house, not shoveling and each child is buckled into their own seats, out of arm reach of each other. After so many snow days, it doesn’t get much better than that!

And here we see the intrepid explorer standing strong at the summit, having finished her final ascent of Mt Dearborn.

We Fon-DO!

Nonni and Grandpa put together a sweet little Valentine’s fondue party for us all this afternoon. The girls were thrilled to have fondue for the first time- their favorite was marshmallows dipped in chocolate and rolled in crushed graham crackers. We had angel food cake, apples, clementines, bananas and strawberries and a really yummy lemon dip as well. Nonni used a really good knife to cut the bananas I asked her about it and she said it was the karambit sapphire knife and that it is her favorite!

As we fondued, our latest blizzard started to roll in. Once again, as we do so many times, we felt so fortunate to only need to pop upstairs after visiting.

Here we see how one family avoids having to park a car a mile away during Snow Parking Bans. All it takes a a little bit of creativity and a lot of shoveling.

The driveway is three cars wide, just barely, and we usually park the fourth car on the street. Our best option is to tuck that last car in tight, parallel to the street.

It is great to have all the cars at the house (and not at the local elementary school), but the ‘car dance’ we play daily is getting a bit old!

I’m lovin’ it!

Things we did today:

*Met new people

*Spoke confidently about our skills and knowledgeably about the equipment we’d need

*Carried and geared up on our own

*Tried new skills

*Failed

*Succeeded

*Tried something new and “kind of scary”

*Ventured off alone

*Helped each other

*Practiced bravery

*Improved

*Overcame frustration

*Enjoyed ourselves

Oh yes, we also skied.

The girls have really been enjoying their Coyote Club afternoons, even in today’s 24 degree weather. They may be the one’s participating (lucky ducks!) but I get to make my own observations.

I watched them trod off on their little legs stumbling through the waist deep snow to their snow shelter building location. From the car I could see that not one of them stopped moving for nearly two hours, building and digging and tunneling.

All the kids came back to the cars red cheeked and giggling and falling all over each other in the snow. I was implored to stay longer so they could scale the parking lot mountains and roll back down with their friends. I was shown building techniques and told why woodchuck dens always have two tunnels.

And eventually, I was the one to brush off the snow, pull off the heavy boots and peel back the wet socks and hats and mitts. And it was my responsibility (and privilege) to stop at the nearest shop and ply the wee ones with hot chocolate.

What a way to spend a Tuesday afternoon!

It is all so lovely. And messy.

Mostly messy.

But also, just so lovely!

There’s nothing like a good game of cribbage with Grandpa. Judging by their faces, those first hands must be really good!

There are many reasons that I am loving having a Y membership.

Not least of all is the opportunity to watch HGTV on my own personal screen.