If We Took a Holiday...

Some highlights from March...

Trip to Minneapolis to visit the Engle Family

Always so much fun to see our dear friends. The kids have lots of fun together, as do the grown-ups. The took us to a super yummy brunch place, and we got to check out the Minneapolis Children's Museum!

David's Group Violin Recital at the "Big Stage" at Washington Pavilion

We learned a bit about performance etiquette. David seemed to experience a form of stage fright, and kept his head straight down for most of the performance. He also was plucking his own violin strings while other violinists were playing. But aside from those "rookie" faux pas, we were super proud of David. Though he is one of the youngest kids up there, he stands more in the middle of the pack when it comes to progression through the Suzuki curriculum.

St Patrick's Day

We attempted to hold the First Annual Sioux Falls South Side St Patrick's Day Parade. Though we invited tons of friends to participate, we didn't do so until March 16th so as you can imagine, our turnout wasn't so hot. In fact, in the end, it was David, Michael, me, Mamo, and Papo. Oh well. The kids had fun, and there is always next year ;)

Daddy's 34th Birthday

Happy Birthday, Old Man! Love ya like crazy ;)

Best Thing About February

Best thing about February, nay, about the whole winter was February 13th, the day before Valentine's Day. That's the day that we found out that after almost a year of trying, we were pregnant! This picture of me was taken on 2/16, just 3 short days after we found out our good news. Yikes, right??? I mean, seriously, I was like 3-4 weeks pregnant in this pic looking about the same as I did when I was 3-4 months pregnant with David.

Winter Fun

Ironic that I would finally be making this post today of all days...The temperature hovered around 95 degrees for most of the day today. Which means that reminiscing about this winter is not only "safe" but also kind of refreshing ;)

Winter, as I was warned, was very long and very cold. A Sioux Falls friend of mine once told me, "Don't let anybody scare you about the winters here. You've lived in Rochester, NY, South Bend, IN and Chicago. Your winter resume stacks up with the best of them." She's right. And yet....The wind chill here is unreal. And winter does seem to drag on and on. Thank God we moved into our rental home near the beginning of the winter because the kids literally have a whole level here that is unfurnished and open for them to run around in and make a mess in. And we made a point to take advantage of the Science Center, and the new SD Children's Museum, and the community center open play times, and our playgroup, and Chuck E Cheese ;)

There was fun to be had this winter, too...We went sledding at Spellerberg Park. (We opted to steer away from Tuthill Park where the slope is so intense that rumor has it that broken bones are a weekly occurrence and blood-stained snow is a common sight - No thanks!). We drove through a snow storm to get to Minneapolis to visit the Engles. Pretty harrowing drive - now that is what I call winter fun ;) And we built snowmen and snow forts in our back yard. As much snow as we got, it was often so dry that we couldn't pack it at all, so being able to build with the snow was a real treat.