Keeping Up With the Joneses

When I first heard about the Women's March last November, I really, really, really wanted to go to DC to participate. I worked hard to make it happen, but I just couldn't pull it off with our recent trip to Disneyland and Marshall in meetings the entire weekend. I also wanted to go to the one in Park City on Saturday morning but I couldn't find a babysitter and was battling a bad case of Bronchitis and couldn't make it. So after feeling sorry for myself I decided to get up and organize my own women's march with my kids. I really wanted them to understand the issues and know why this march was happening and why it was important to me. I printed out a handful of signs, had a little lesson with the kids about them, and then we marched around the kitchen table chanting "Love, Not Hate, Makes America Great!" The kids thought it was pretty fun and I felt like I had participated in the cause in some way. Our signs.  McKay went to Delta to spend the weeken...

A few months ago my sister-in-law Annie found good prices on flights from Ohio to Southern California and asked if we wanted to meet them in Disneyland for a few days. Of course we would! Our whole family had been trying to organize a time to get together before the summer, so my sister's family and my parents also came down to California for a week of fun. My parents rented a big house that we all could stay in and then we spent 3 days at Disneyland, 1 day at Legoland, and a day resting. Before we left McKay watched Dumbo and was so excited to ride on Dumbo. He rode on the ride 5-6 times and giggles constantly the whole time.  He also loved the carousel.  McKay had no fear at all of the characters and went right up to Mickey and started playing with him. As you can see by my poncho, the first day it rained all day. Not the best weather, but it made for very short lines and we got to ride everything we wanted to.  We also ran into goofy and McKay ran rig...

Last year Mason participated in a city Lego League competition team. It was a great experience but there were about 30 kids on the team, only one robot, and not a lot of time for him to learn about programming. Because we have 4 boys into robotics and legos we decided to buy the Lego Mindstorms Kit  for Christmas and start our own team. Marshall built a competition table  over the summer and we ordered the yearly competition kit. Kids have to be 9-14 to join, so we asked some of Mason's friends (most of Myles' were to young) if they wanted to be on the team. We also had a number of "junior members" who were younger siblings of the kids who were eligible to participate. We met for 2 hours every Saturday for about 4 months to work on the project. Marshall was the head coach and helped the kids with the building, planning, robotics, and challenge . I was the assistant coach and helped the kids with their project (see the blog they built about their project here ) and wit...

After about a 15 year break from skiing (besides trying it last year) I decided to try again and found I LOVED it! I've been twice so far this year--once with just the kids and once with the kids and Jessica's family and my dad. Jessica and I--skiing buddies for 35 years.  A family of skiers. I took the three oldest kids skiing. Mason has been going for a few years and Myles had just had a lesson with school. It was Max's first time. I put all three of them in lessons and enjoyed skiing by myself in the morning. Then we all skied together. Max and Myles picked it up really fast. Max is fearless and just goes! Myles is very cautious.  We've had a ton of snow this season. Max has enjoyed building snowmen.  I keep waiting for the day when having 4 boys will become more helpful than hard. Having them shovel snow wasn't when it happened.