ice world

Since the river is all melted the dam opened and the mist from the falls lands on the trees above. It has turned into a little world of ice! Every blade of grass is about 1/2 inch in diameter with ice and growing thicker. The trees are all bent over from the weight of the ice. It is incredible!

I went over this morning when the sun was rising, it was beautiful!

Thousands of ice sickles...

 

This is what it looks like from our side of the river. (photo by Joel)

Dad took this picture yesterday when we were exploring the ice.

:)  This tree behind Dad almost looked like it was covered with grapes, because of the way the ice formed.

spring break.

This week Hannah had spring break from her classes (although she still had just as much school assigned to her - what kind of spring break is that???).  On Tuesday she and I decided to go have some fun! It was alternating between snow and rain outside, but we packed a backpack with a pan and some hot cocoa and hiked up to the cabin. It was a little challenging (well, maybe a lot) to build a fire with soaked through wood and brush. After about an hour of working on our fire, we had a nice warm blazing fire going!!! We sat up there drinking hot cocoa and reading for a few hours... it was very fun! :D

a day of spring.

On the nice spring days that we get here and there all of the kids have been enjoying playing outside! Lots of bike riding and rollerblading...

Everytime Sylvia goes outside, she has to bring her baby! 

"My baby wants to go outside too"!!

it's starting to look a lot like springtime!

The weather is turning!! Yay! It is soo beautiful, we are all happily welcoming the 60 and 70 degree days!

Yesterday we took a nice walk in the woods...

it was a perfect day to just take it easy and enjoy the sunshine!

We played tag and played around this bridge...

climbing around... trying to stay out of the mud... lots of fun.

st. croix valley.

It was a beautiful day! 

waiting out the March snow...

Yesterday it snowed.  None of us were quite ready for snow again, but it is very beautiful! 

While everyone is doing school, all of the younger kids have been keeping themselves busy! They have been making lots of forts... and putting together puzzles.

Talia has been making lots of cards lately! Each one is getting better and better! I am going to have to try to get a picture of some of her cards to post!

Every time Seth and I drop off the recycling, we try to find a cool place to visit that is within 5 minutes of our house... This week we drove through a beautiful cemetery and stopped to take pictures under my favorite bridge!

Hannah is working like crazy! She works over 40 hours a week plus full time college classes. As always, she is doing a great job keeping up and spending time with the family!

and this is me. Hello! :D

be smart.

For the past couple of months we have been trying to get better at buying and saving. If you are interested here are a few ideas to get better at saving when you spend.

-Yesterday I went shopping and bought a (brand new) free shirt (because I had done my work in advance).

-Last fall I bought a (brand new) sweater that I wear all the time for $1 because I took the time to look for coupons.

-Most of my skirts cost under $5 because of sales and coupons.

It has sort of become a game to see who of us in our family can be the smartest with our purchases! ( I think I won yesterday - it is hard to beat free)

The key is to not go crazy w/ the coupons - remember that time is money as well! We always have to make sure that what we are working on is worth the time we are spending to get it!

I would recommend creating a coupon email account - so you don't get junk mail in your regular account!

• When Dad and Mom go out for dinner one of us often goes onto restaurants.com where, if you sign up for their emails you can buy $25 gift certificates for restaurants for $3 in advance. (last Friday when they went out for lunch, Mom had saved a $5 coupon that she had found and got her burger for $2) :D

• The way I bought my shirt yesterday was because I signed up for MyPoints.com where I can get coupons. Also they send you TONS of emails (I never end up looking at all of them), which if you open them you receive points and when you have enough points you can choose a gift card for a clothing store/starbucks/a restaurant or whatever you want and they will send it to you. It is kind of a mindless thing to do - I often do it while I am working on something else on my computer.

• Everytime Dad goes into town he always stops at Kwik Trip to get our milk and bananas (and sometimes Orange juice). You can also get coupons online. Their milk is $1.19 for a half gallon - Dad always buys a whole box of it!(although Mom found a coupon at Cubs for $1.64 for a gallon this week)Bananas are $0.39 a lb. - which if he gets a whole case he saves somewhere between $5 and $10 everytime!

• Mom has been buying the Sunday paper for the coupons inside: then if someone happens to be running to Walmart for something, she will check the sales and if she can get a sale and her coupon on top of eachother  then it makes a big difference!

• Mom has a whole envelope of coupons that we just check before we go pick up what we need.

If anyone has any other tips to pass back to us, we would love to hear!

 

Liesel and Will.

On Saturday my cousin Liesel and her very good friend Will came up for dinner.

It was a lot of fun to have them!

After dinner we went on a short walk down by the river... we visited the "cat house" (from the outside!!!) and another deserted house that is down the street - it would make an excellent town haunted house... there is no door and several of the windows are broken, and a tall broken down fence that goes around the house - w/ a few boards missing.

It was a ncie time with Liesel and Will... very fun to get to know Will a little better! :D

Ordinary Days.

Everyone has been busy with school lately. Lots of math, history, science, reading and writing.  They all work hard! Someday maybe I will join the school ranks once again, but for now, I am really enjoying being the only one who is not in school. 

Behn, Tovala and Asher have all been making these cross-bows! With the nice weather we are beginning to have, it is fun to watch them -through the windows- running around the house shooting their cross-bows. 

Sylvia loves her baby doll! I think that since she, unlike the rest of us, doesn't have a baby brother or sister to play with, she is very attentive to her baby. It is pretty cute to watch her run through the kitchen towards her bedroom, saying "my baby is crying!". She is always asking us to swaddle her baby. Very considerately, she asks everyone if they want to hold her baby. The other thing that keeps her(and Mom) quite busy is her dress ups! She is always dressing up. At any given time she may have three or four "dress up dresses" on at one time, plus, of course, her pretty shoes, a scarf, and lots of long pearl necklaces! It is very fun!

D.C. for the Weekend.

On Thursday Hannah and I flew out to see Abram, Aaron and Jennifer.  Hannah had a couple of weeks off work and we found some good priced tickets, so we took a quick trip out.

We spent the first day day and a half with Aaron and Jennifer! They made us a great Thai dinner on Thursday.

On Friday we spent a fun day just hanging out with Aaron and Jennifer. We took a walk around their neighborhood and prepared for a birthday party for Abram.  A bunch of friends came over for a fun evening. It was very nice! :D

On Saturday Hannah and I spent Saturday with Abram. He gave us a tour of his office building...

We went and saw a couple of his favorite memorials...

It was great to spend the day with Abram! 

After spending much of the day in D.C., we went back to his apartment and made dinner.

On Sunday we went to church with them and then went back to Abram's apartment and spent the day together.

It was a great weekend! Hannah and I enjoyed the time together very much... :D 

Asher reading with Dad