I don’t write here as much as I’d like, but a lot of fun things happen that I want to remember.  So, rather than try to format this into a coherent post, here are some anecdotes:

Griffin’s favorite words recently are  ”awesome” and “awful”.

He’s very interested in learning to read, he spends a lot of time sounding things out and trying to spell things.  He’s very happy he figured out how to spell “Ohio”.

He just learned to eat with chopsticks, he still loves Chinese food.  And burritos.  He only weighs 48 pounds and somehow he can eat a whole Qdoba burrito.

Soon after the “crazy hair” pictures he cut some chunks out of his hair and was really happy to have a bald spot just like Grandpa Claire.

He thinks recumbent bicycles are for handicapped people and refuses to believe me that anyone can ride them.

A while ago we were making lemonade and Griffin wanted to juice two lemons.  I told him we only needed one and I didn’t want to waste the other lemon.  He announced that after he has enough money to get a Star Wars toy he’s going to save his allowance to buy lemons.   I thought he’d forgotten this but yesterday he told me after he buys lemons he’s going to give them to all his friends.  When people come over for a play date when they go home he’s going to give them a lemon.

He’s not satisfied with the rate of his allowance, so he’s trying to hatch plans to start a business.  First he decided to sell lemons (see above) but Julian told him the profit margins probably wouldn’t be very good.  Now he’s wondering about selling pancakes.

We went ice skating for the first time yesterday.  As we were driving to the rink Griffin became worried he didn’t have his snow pants.  I explained that the rink was indoors, that they cover the floor of an indoor rink with ice.  He looked at me dubiously and said “That sounds dangerous.”

From last weekend…

There’s always wildlife out back, and pretty much any given day we can find a herd of deer peering at us.

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A few sunset pics added to the Cabin set:

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It’s been a long and bumpy road; the course is still uncertain…

We realized we didn’t have any pictures of Candace’s new Nissan Cube, so here’s a shot:

As you can see, we opted for the Snow package.

Spent pretty much the whole day on clearing out the snow. It’s the most snow we’ve had in one shot since we’ve been here… the neighbor measured 17 inches at the lowest spot he could find, and it was very heavy snow at that. There’s really no way I could have taken it on without the snow blower.

After helping a few neighbors clear a path to their mailboxes, I wound up running out of gas. This necessitated a trip into town… which was a bit perilous with all the drifting snow about and crews too overwhelmed to keep things clear. As it happened, I did manage to hit a snow drift and the car tracked right off the road into a bit of a ditch.

With the temperatures in single digits and falling, and sunset about 45 minutes off, I tried a stint of digging myself out… which included (accidentally) striking my head against the car and adding a slightly bloodied goose egg to the increasingly pathetic picture for all the kind folks who passed by and stopped to offer a ride.

Eventually I summoned Candace & Griffin to assist, bringing shovel and salt. Then a well equipped 4×4 pulled over and managed to pull me out with a tow strap, and we were on our way. Woo! Thank you, oh kind, kind people of Wisconsin!

Working on the driveway / both our cars:

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