Living in the dark

Since we returned from sunny Texas, we were first very excited by what was, at that point, the mildest winter on record. We enjoyed temps in the mid-40's - a ton warmer than when we arrived last year that is for sure! So, while it was dark and cloudy and rainy it was not cold so we were pretty relieved.

But then the cold did finally arrive and the darkness does wear on you. Did I mention that we only got 17 hours of sunlight the entire month of January? We still can't complain too much given what most of the US has been facing this year - but we had about 10 days below freezing with winds blowing non-stop 25-40mph - so the wind chills were in the single digits. I'm sure you can imagine biking the fully loaded big bike against those winds was not fun! I did have to give in some days and take the bus or at least accept rides from sympathetic friends with cars.

The cold has brought us a bit of snow and the kids of course enjoy playing in it and it does make things look prettier, even when it's dreary outside - here are some photos.

it snowed quite a bit while we were inside Raegan's 30 minute swimming class - this is our bike buried in the snow

 

I must point out, in this photo that it is in fact 4:30pm...and pitch black. We are on the back terrace at our house. Baxter just loves the snow.

Snow angels are a favorite at our house.

This photo is taken from our back door into our backyard.

At the roundabout right by our house

At our house

Sledding in the backyard

 

At the dog park

They built a snow man with the remaining snow

 The one bonus of the cold weather is we have extra refrigerator space! A perfect place to store the beer is right outside the back door. 

This weekend Raegan and I and our friends the Worobels went to check out a popular outdoor ice skating rink in another part of the city called Fredriksberg - it's a really vibrant part of town that I definitely want to go back to. The ice skating rink was interesting - much smaller than I expected and a bit of a free- for-all. They didn't really groom the ice so there was a lot of snow on it making it difficult to skate. Then there were no rules - you didn't have to skate a particular direction or anything - very talented small children would whip in front of you :-). The skates you rent were hockey skates too (but the one rule there is NO hockey) instead of the normal skates you would rent at a rink. So...skating was a bit difficult and we were glad the rental was only for an hour!!

Raegan with her trainer penguin

 

 

Wyatt had a big month - lots of changes for him. He started a new International Preschool that is just great. It's a 5 min walk from our house - he's a big boy now in a class of 3-5 year olds. In addition to the academic things, he gets to do baking class, art class, gym class, music class (on different days) and even go on field trips. He still goes 3 days a week.

 As a reward for doing so well transitioning to his new school and starting potty training, we moved Wyatt into his big boy bed. He absolutely loves his new bed and Ron and I got lucky so far as he still respects the boundaries of the bed and doesn't get out of it unless we tell him he can. We'll see how long that lasts!

The kids winter break is next week and we head off to the Canary Islands for some sunshine - looking very forward to it!!