It's warm! It's warm! Oh wait. It WAS warm.

I don't even know how warm it was yesterday and today. Somewheres around 45 degrees. Warm enough to shed the jackets, and even shed the sweaters for a moment. There is but one word to describe such a condition:

Glorious.

Part of it is just breathing air that isn't either:

a)outside air that freezes the lining of your nostrils, or

b)recycled inside air that you have been exhaling and then breathing in for approximately 3 months.

Part of it is taking a walk and letting the kids splash in puddles and run around. Yes, running full speed on the melting ice, which happens to include slipping and doing full-blown belly flops or butt-plops on the ice... multiple times. (That's what we call deep sensory input, baby. It's all good)

It's all-around a God-ordained, beautiful, needed, right-about-when-I-thought-I-would-die-from-the-cold, breath of fresh air.

But.

This afternoon, Ava sang on the way to the car, "It's SPRIIIING!!!"

It's February 1. Tomorrow it's cold again. Not Spring.

Not. Spring.

And herein lies the Minnesota conundrum. We love days like this, but it makes us want things that are, um... like...

4 months away.

And they weren't even axe murderers!

I had me a little get-together with some bloggy friends Saturday morning.

def.
bloggy friend (n): (1) A person you probably know more about than your next door neighbor, and yet you don't know their last name, and in some instances, their first name either. (2) A person you hope is not an axe murderer in disguise, when you go meet them at a local restaurant for breakfast.

I had to tell Corene that I was going out to breakfast with some friends "that I met on the computer". Tell me that's not going to come back to haunt me in about 10 years...

These ladies were great! What a fun morning. Many of us confessed to each other that our husbands were a bit skeptical about just who we were going to meet, and were we sure that they weren't crazies?

Well, I'm not sure about the part that they weren't crazy. I do believe that they were all crazy. But in a different, sleepy-coffee-drinking-we-all-have-preschoolers-crazed-mommy sort of way. This title is one I wear with pride. It is only a season that we get to be crazies, why not have fun with it??!!

Given the above definition of the attendees, you might assume that we consumed a mighty lot of coffee at our table.

You would assume correctly.

We were waited on by the fabulous Fernando. (wait - Eduardo? Ricardo? What was his name??!!!!)

At any rate, he was gracious when we asked him to split our checks, and then double-gracious when we each handed him cash that he needed to give change for. He walked up to the table with 7 checks, and 7 stacks of change, all orderly and organized.

He won my praise, though, when he even took pictures for us with 4 different cameras. With a very weary smile on his face. Needless to say, I tipped him well.

Anyhoo, here's the group picture taken by Senor Waiter:

From left to right, Rachel from Badgers on the Loose, Heather of the EO, Kelly of LoveWell, Sara from Butterville, Whitney of Baby Tunnel Exodus, Moi, and MinnesotaMom.

Va-va-vacation

Last weekend, Matt and I had the. most. amazing. little getaway. Ever. Ever.

We spent 2. whole. nights. away.

My mom is the most awesome woman. She braved 3 kids for 2 days, so we could recharge.

The first night we stayed at this Bed and Breakfast:

See the tallest part? The tower? That was part of our room. It was so. cool.

This was our view:

Friday night, we just happened to have one of the most killer thunderstorms of the season with lots of lightning. So, of course, we were in the tower, watching the huge wall cloud approach us,

when the sirens started to wail. Being that we are incredibly intelligent individuals, we decided to exit the tower, which I am guessing could be blown off rather quickly in a tornado. Just a thought.

I headed down to the lobby to socialize with the innkeepers, and make sure we didn't need to take it seriously, while Matt checked the radar on the inn's computer (because it is physically painful for Matt to abstain from radar during any sort of storm).

After the sirens stopped, we headed back up, up, up to the tower and watched the lightning. Which was impressive. Really impressive.

Of all the nights for an awesome storm, we're at the top of a hill in a 4th floor tower! And, since I'm a novice but wanna-be photographer with a pretty nice camera, I lugged it up there and took some pictures!

How cool is that?? I'm totally hooked. On trying to photograph lightning. I got me some serious adrenaline rushes.

I also looked like a bonafide geek holding that camera to my eye for 45 minutes and having a complete spasm every time I saw a flash. I don't care, though... Matt is enough of a weather nerd that he didn't even laugh at me. Add that to the list of reasons I love my husband.

The next day, we went canoeing on the river, which was supposed to be easy and relaxing. When you canoe on a river, if you feel like not paddling, you're supposed to still go forward, because of the current.

Not so this day. We had wind in the 20-35mph range. Blowing directly in our faces.

So, you know that rule about going forward no matter what you do? Nope. If we stopped paddling, we went backwards. That is not the way it is supposed to be, folks.

We got a workout.

Unfortunately, I have no pictures. With the wind being the way it was, we had to weigh our chances of having the aforementioned nice camera stolen out of the car vs. the chance of our canoe being blown over and losing the camera in the river. We chose to leave it in the car, and thankfully neither event occurred.

If I had taken pictures, they would be these:

1)A very very young fawn drinking from the river along a smaller, calmer, quieter inlet off the main river. The fawn had no fear. We were within 15 feet of it and it just stood there looking at us for quite some time.

2)Ocean-like waves breaking about every 5 feet.

Ok, maybe not ocean-like. But it felt like it. There were whitecaps, ok? It was really windy.

My arms still hurt. My... umm... sitting bones... still hurt. The smart people brought little chairs to sit in. I don't fall into that category, unfortunately, and I didn't even sit on a towel. I sat on a piece of metal. Ouch.

All in all, we had a marvelous time. It was so awesome to just be Jenny. And it was great to call Matt, well... Matt.

Imagine that. Me calling him "Matt". The truth is, I call him "Daddy" a lot.

Like calling down the street where he's talking to the neighbor, when it's time for dinner, "DADDY!".

Seriously. Embarrassing.

I'm working on breaking the habit.

"Hi, I'm Jenny and I call my husband "Daddy"."

This trip was the first step to recovery.

Spring has sprung, dirt and all.

This:

plus this:

equals this:

but it also equals this:

The season of singing has come

Song of Solomon 2:12

It's a cruel, cruel world state.

Sunday - a balmy 53 degrees. No coats. A bee-utiful day. Let us ride our bikes and frolic to and fro.

Monday - Makey we a snowman. Not so balmy. Ahem.

What in THEE world is wrong with Minnesota?

Yes, I'm whining.

It was snowing SO hard today. Matt dropped me off to pick up our car from the car doctor (what we our kids call the mechanic), and told me he'd brush the snow off the car before he left. I went inside to pay for the service. I came out not 5 minutes later and saw the car covered in snow. A wee bit perturbed, I brushed it off, got in the car, and called him.

"You said you'd brush the car off!!!"

"I DID!! Actually, twice!"

Aye aye aye.

In other news, We went to the pediatrician today for Isaac's 15 month check-up, as well as a pre-op physical for him (he's having both of his tear ducts probed on Wed. morning, and any prayers for him (and ME!) would be appreciated).

This child has an enormous head, not unlike the rest of our clan. All our kids have had head circumferences >95%ile.

My 5 year old currently wears adult women's size hats/helmets. My 3 year old wears a bike helmet that's for 8-16 year olds. Today on Isaac's chart, the nurse wrote "22 inches - 100th %ile". 100th!!!! 100th percentile doesn't even exist, that would mean that Isaac has the biggest head of any 15month old ever.

Maybe he does.

Grilling out. In the snow.

Am I pathetic or what?

It was DELICIOUS. Totally worth the ridiculous picture.

Must. Have. FUN.

I could just eat him up.

Spring?? Please??!!

So, it's March 5. Spring, right? I know in my head that in Minnesota, March NEVER qualifies as spring. NEVER. The last frost is somewheres around May 15th, so I'm smoking something if I am expecting Spring. in March. in Minnesota.

Well, what I'm smokin' is seeds. Glorious seeds. Brought to me from heaven above California.

My seed packets say "start seeds indoor 8-10 weeks before last frost". Sadly, we are 10 weeks away from the last frost. But, just feeling the soil between my fingers and looking at those peat pots lined up on my window sill is enough for me to peek over them, look outside, and expect to see daffodils popping up.

Hardly.

Last night, we had Pasta Primavera. With asparagus. Lots of Asparagus. And breadsticks made from this pizza crust recipe. And then I made these. It was an extremely delicious evening.

So, am I savoring the promise of spring, or am I eating away my sorrows about the current state of our outdoors? Yes.