Feeling Like a Bear

I am starting to understand the principal of hibernation - a little too much.   January has been cold and mostly grey, leaving us as a family to just stay inside and have "jammy days" on the weekends.  Add in the fact that it gets dark early and I find it really hard to leave my warm house when it is snowing and below freezing outside!   I do manage to force in some running despite the fact that I can't feel my face when doing so.  Cabin fever? Yeah, we might have a little bit of it up here!  So we are making it a priority to get out, at least a little :)

A couple of weekends ago, we took the girls skiing in the Poconos at Blue Mountain.    We figured it was a great way to test out all of their new ski equipment before we head off to Telluride later this month.   They girls had a ball in ski school while Hubby and I enjoyed some runs - just the two of us!  We haven't had a "day date" in quite a while!   And it resulted in a quiet night back at home since A & M were worn out from all the hard work.   Since it is a quick 1.5 hour away, we will do this more often - win for all.

This past weekend, Hubby went to pay his respects to his late Uncle in Ohio.  So the girls and I stayed behind and spent one of the days visiting the Please Touch Museum in Philly.   This museum reminded me a lot of Imagine It in Atlanta, but it was much bigger and even has a century-old carousel inside of it - which has some serious history and was the highlight of the trip for the girls.   
And finally,  I was invited to spend a day volunteering at a wonderful organization Cradles to Crayons with some women from St. David's Church.    This non-profit takes like-new and new clothing from donations and works with social organizations, nurses, teachers, etc., to help children in need.    I was impressed at the sheer volume of donations that were there and how efficiently running this warehouse was in which to help.    I really enjoyed helping here and am looking forward to returning with this group again next month and maybe taking A & M.   That is one of the things I liked about this group is that they encourage children to come volunteer in the warehouse.  

Outside of school, work, and the girls' gymnastics and most recently, ice-skating lessons, we have been enjoying ourselves at home a lot.   It is nice for us to spend time together as a family and I know as soon as the ground thaws out, we will be back outside and getting busy.   So I am going to enjoy these lazy weekends while we can!  Seriously - who would pass up drinking red wine by a fire in your jammies????  Not this peach!

Carousel at Please Touch Museum

Piano from the movie Big

Silly girls

Ski Hubby - "Not quite Colorado...but it will do"