Winter Wonderland

This weekend our family headed to McCall, Id for the annual Winter Carnival.  McCall is absolutely breathtaking and being in the Mountains surrounded by evergreens covered in snow was beautiful.  And while it was nice to get away for a short while, we weren't sure the 7 hour round-trip drive was quite worth what we managed to fit into the 24 hours that we were there.  We enjoyed ourselves, but just barely as much as two native Floridians who don't actually own proper snow attire can enjoy going in and out of freezing temps, trudging through snow and walking on ice, not to mention constantly squeezing a wiggly three year old in and out of a marshmallow suit and snow boots.  It got a little old.  We definitely walked away with the feeling of having "checked a box"- getting out of our comfort zone and experiencing everything that this area of the country has to offer while we live here because, so help us, we will never live anywhere this cold again.
Our first two activities were kind of a bust.  First, the Children's mini-carnival was certainly "mini", and nothing that we could not have come across in a super market parking lot.  Hayden did ride the ferris wheel once with Matt (a first) and the very rickety carousel once with me.  $9 and 15 minutes later (half of which was spent getting Hayden in and out of his marshmallow suit) and we were done.  We did spot some deer across the street while we were there, which was the coolest part of the carnival.

But there were, as I said, some highlights.  Like I mentioned, the scenery was gorgeous.  The first pictures we took of the Lake were at sunset that evening.

Our room was also very nice.  We stayed at the Shore Lodge and were in a room overlooking the lake.  I made a point to reserve a lake-side room so that we could watch the fireworks over the Lake from inside and not have to be out in the cold after sunset.  (Can you tell where my priorities are?)  Watching the fireworks from our room was great and then we ordered some food and hot cocoa to-go from the hotel's lounge and had a feast in the room.

After the fireworks we all put on our bathing suits and headed to the hotel's swimming pool.  The pool is actually outside but heated, and there was a hot tub as well.  Swimming outside in a warm pool in 25ish degree weather was fun and Hayden loved it.  Matt took some good video with the camcorder, I will have to try uploading that in another post.

The next morning we took a drive around the lake and did some site-seeing.  One of the attractions carnival was snow sculptures all over town and while we saw a few we didn't take many pictures.  Just a couple.

 (from the night before, obviously)

After the drive we found a huge mound of snow that someone had carved about 4 or 5 slides into, along with steps leading the the top.  We got Hayden all decked out in his snow gear again and let him play for a while.  Matt and I each took turns sliding down with Hayden and he did a few by himself.  We only got video of that activity as well, so I'll post that later.
On the way out of town we stopped at a little pastry shop in Donnelly called "Flight of Fancy" run by the wife of a retired AF pilot who now charters flights around the area.  Very lovely people and, I must say, the best chocolate croissant I have ever tasted!
Even though we could take or leave the snow, we would definitely recommend McCall to anyone who ever had the opportunity to visit.  Maybe in the summer sometime :)

Random Updates

Its been quite a while since I made my last blog post and since I have no intention to abandon it entirely I figured I needed to make another one.  Unfortunately I have not taking many (or any) pictures the last month or better, and there is not a whole lot new going in in the Rogers family.  But for the sake of updating I will fill everyone in with the little details.

I've been drowning in a sea of construction paper and other craft materials since Hayden started Mother's Day Out in the fall.  I've really just been accumulating everything on my kitchen counter so that I could take pictures of Hayden with his art projects.  I hate clutter so I finally broke down one day and  hastily lined everything up for pictures so I can throw it all away put it away properly :)  Hence the pajamas.  And then the battery on my camera died.  Hence the pictures of turkeys and nothing else.

In other news, Matt was named the CGO of the quarter for his group in December.  Translation: of all the Lt's and Captains in his Group (which consists of five squadrons) he was noted to have the best performance October through December of last year.  He has been working very hard in his new job since he got back from his deployment and has been getting praises from his bosses and others in his squadron so I was happy he was recognized for his hard work.  We are very proud of him!

I am now 16 weeks pregnant (or will be tomorrow) and the pregnancy is going great.  I started feeling "normal" again around week twelve so I am thankful for that.  I have my next appointment on Tuesday so I will be excited to see how things are going.  We should find out the sex of the baby around the end of February.  

Hayden has already picked up on the idea that I have a baby in my belly and talks about it all the time.  He is convinced that he has a little brother in there and refuses the possibility that it could be a little sister.  We'll see :)  He has been really sweet talking about the baby.  One morning right after he got up he asked me "Mommy, does my little brother have a blanket in there?" and another time when he was getting into bed at night he got back out of bed to rub my belly before going to bed.  I think he is going to be a great big brother.

That's all for now- hopefully updates will start coming more regularly again!