Ice, Ice, Baby

Alright, stop! Collaborate and listen! (Sorry.....couldn't resist.)

On my winter bucket list this year was visiting the Ice Castles in Lincoln, New Hampshire. I initially tried to do it on MLK weekend but apparently everyone and their dog wanted to do the same and we were stuck trying to get off Loon Mountain, out of the small town of Lincoln for over an hour. Each time we tried to do it since, something else has happened.

A couple of weeks ago, poor Cade got a nasty stomach bug which Mike cleaned up\dealt with all day while I was at work. Then Mike was down with said bug a couple of days later. By Friday, it seemed like all were well and we were going to give the Ice Castles a try. I took off work early to make the drive up. I got home, was greeted with a very long from Cade who said "I don't feel good" then proceeded to puke all over me, my bags and himself. Yuck! 

After much clean up and debate on next steps, against my better judgement we went ahead and stayed with plans to head north. Thanks to our late start and ridiculously heavy traffic, we missed our timed ticket window. Was I doomed not to get this item crossed off my bucket list? 

By some miracle, we finally got there (after the kids' usual bedtime), they let us in even though we were overdue, and the kids really enjoyed it despite the very cold night and the extenuating circumstances. Cade wanted me to carry him through most of it, but since that was the worst problem we had, it really was a great time. And the ice castles were really cool (no pun intended)!

Ice Bench

Entrance Tunnel

Fountain

Moon In The Background

Small Ice Tunnel (Weren't Quite Brave Enough to Go Through This One)

The Lights Were Really Cool

This is how they looked to us...without the camera flash.

Looking up at the icicles was beautiful!

Ice Slide

Love This Pic

Me and My Boys (No Flash)

Me and My Boys (Flash)

I loved seeing the ice castles at night. Seeing the rotating colors coming from within the ice was really mesmerizing. However, if time had allowed, I would have loved to see them as well during the daytime to get to really SEE the ice formations a little clearer. Alas, we won't be able to do so because rising temps mean this tourist attraction is now officially closed.

Ice Castle Selfie

Mike was happy to be our official photographer that night and stay out of being in the paparazzi. So all credit to the gorgeous pictures above go to him (except the selfie of course). And in other good news, that last bought of sickness really was the end of it for Cade (yay!). Nothing sadder than seeing your usually energetic, happy kids down for the count.

Mommobile 2.0

6 years ago, when I was driving a sports car with rear wheel drive in Boston winters (bad idea) and pregnant with Dylan, I traded it in for Mommobile 1.0. It was an SUV with all wheel drive, a roomy back seat for those huge bucket car seats infants use and plenty of trunk storage space for lots of baby gear.

Fast forward to now, I have a 5.5 year old in a booster seat, a forward facing car seat for the 3 year old and we rarely take the stroller places with us anymore. Still need to tote some diapers, but no more kid gear really needed than I can fit in my purse (or in Mike's case, a small backpack). And, let's face it, I am a sports car driver at heart. I want to go fast, zoom in and out of traffic but, with the kids, keep a high safety rating and still need slightly more than a trunk's worth of storage. My needs have changed so I did lots of car shopping at the end of last year to find a car to suit them. Now it's time for Mom Mobile 2.0:

She's the perfect combo of both worlds - 325 horsepower, nice trunk space, and built in booster seats! I ordered her 10 weeks ago and FINALLY got to pick her up on Sunday. Still have a lot to learn about the many features the car offers, but commuting to work this week has definitely been a bit more exciting this week.

Winter Schenanagans

This week has seen a serious amount of snow melt around here. As of this morning, I can finally see over the snowbank at the end of my driveway in my tiny little car! Woohoo! There has been a lot of hate circulating towards the extreme cold and snow we've had the last few months. When I moved here, I chose winter so I really do my best not to complain about it. I really do. And I think of all years, I've had to take that to heart the most this year. We found lots of ways to enjoy the snow. But, I will say the end of winter is a mixed bag of feelings for me. I am very much looking forward to the arrival of spring, warmer temps, more sun, and reclaiming our world from the snow. However, I'm also a little sad because I feel like we've just really gotten to the meat of our ski season only to see it abruptly coming to an end.

To celebrate the end of winter, I wanted to share with you some of the beauty\fun of it that we experienced the last couple of weekends. Mostly they were glorious weekends because, although everything was still covered in lots and lots of snow, we were finally given a break from freezing temps which made it enjoyable to go out in. You'd be amazed at what 40 feels like after enduring the temperatures we've had. It was like summer!

Beautiful Cardinal Against the White Snowy Background

Cade In Snowshoes

Dylan and His Snowshoes

My boys have become quite adept at getting around in their snowshoes. Probably because they've had LOTS of practice because that has been the only way to access our backyard. I haven't been out to the backyard since last Sunday, and there's been lots of melting since, but I certainly found it much easier then to get around in my snowshoes....and we haven't had snow in weeks!

Of course, we've been enjoying the winter fun in NH as well.

Snow On Our Mountain View

Me and Dylan

And Mike's Gloved Hand Made the Pic Too

Dylan Graduated to Runs Accessed By a Lift
He's really improved a ton this year.

Even though we certainly have had lots of snow, we really haven't had many snowman making opportunities. For one, most of the snow we got from the storms was really light and fluffy. It made for easier shoveling, but it didn't stick together well for snowmen or snowballs. Plus, getting dumped on repeatedly created a lot of work for the grownups to try and prevent home damage and do a lot of snow removal (even with the plow guy doing the bulk of it). Last weekend, we took our stale, sticky snow and made ourselves some snowmen!

Cade wanted the snowman to have feet, hence the single monster foot on this one.

I dug a pit for the boys. See how deep the snow still is after weeks of settling and melting!

This snowman was bait to capture the Joker in the pit (obviously).
Complete with spooky eyes and horns.

Dylan had a thriving frozen pizza business going.

The kids have been great. We have made sure they got outside to play in any way possible as often as possible. Their good spirits and active imaginations have made for lots of fun snow play. They may be sad to see it go too...especially when our yard turns into a mud pit for (potentially) months. Should be an interesting spring!

Art of the Brick

About a month ago, I was given tickets for an exhibit that a friend wasn't able to use. I went in not really knowing too much about it other than it was something about art and legos....one that I want the kids to love and one they already love (guess which is which). Well, turns out it's a legit artist, Nathan Sawaya, who has a dream job for most kids - building stuff with legos! (Perhaps 2nd only to being a video game tester.) Ok, he doesn't "build stuff with legos" as much as he "creates art with legos as his medium" (sounds fancier, right?).

American Gothic

It was apparently a crazy popular exhibit. The tickets were really pricey and entry by tickets were at timed intervals. We had to wait quite a while before going in, despite arriving just after our timed window started. Luckily, that was perfectly laid out right in the middle of Cade's nap. Joy. However, he stayed pretty happy being carried around on my back so there were no major meltdowns. And he was super stoked to see the legos. Every time he saw a new piece of art he pointed and loudly said "lego!" Truth, kid.

Dumb dumb, me want gum gum!
The boys knew this one from Night at the Museum.

A good amount of the art was a recreation of other famous artwork. Some of the recreation of paintings were made to look more 2D (like a painting but of course being legos it was still 3D) and others took the 2D painting and gave it a 3D sculptural look.

Mona Lisa

Us being the super cultured people we are (HA!), I felt pretty proud that the boys recognized some of the pieces from their touch the art books. And also from cartoon movies (you can't tell me they don't learn from silly cartoons).

Girl With A Pearl Earring
This is one that Dylan recognized.

This one too.
Dylan can even tell you that this painting (Starry Night) was
painted by none other than Vincent Van Gogh (parenting win).

The Scream
It was pretty crowded in general but there always seemed to be a
a lot of folks around this one. A true crowd pleeser.

Dylan's love of ancient Egypt made him excited about the Great Sphinx.

The legos built like famous art was in the first few rooms. Then we got to see some of his original creations.

Face Photobomb

The Swimmer
This one was probably my favorite. The light effect on it was really cool.

Not surprisingly, Dylan loved the skulls.
Or in this case, this guy peeling off his skin to reveal his skull. Nice.

Tree Huggers

Lego Guts

Lego Dinosaur Skeleton

Going slowly through the exhibit itself took a little less than an hour. It was a really cool thing to do with the boys and I was thankful for the opportunity. Also, the fact that it was downtown made it into a nice little half day trip. It was a really cold day so we didn't hang out a lot outside, but we did do a little shopping at the partially indoor kiosks around Faneuil Hall and the boys loved looking in the window of the Christmas Shop as well.

If this exhibit comes to your town, I highly recommend it. Just try and find a groupon or something to purchase tickets. I really did think the entrance fee was a bit ridiculous and was glad I hadn't actually paid that much for our family to spend an hour of time.