too busy

been too busy skiing (yeah!!!) to blog..
I am loving it, and will post soon, as I feel I have much to blog about.
but suffice it to say, I was at the slopes today for 5 1/2 hours with the boys and we all came home tired and happy.....
we have had much cold weather, so the skiing has been great (although still no snow on the ground anywhere except there).
we have been skiing pretty much 4ish days a week, and it's been wonderful.
more soon.

oh, and here is a short clip of emmett on Monday. I was skiing with him while Eli had his lesson. Keep in mind, I was skiing alongside emmett, my hand was wicked cold holding the camera, I was using periforal vision to not crash into anyone else, and emmett wanted to 'bomb' down! (and he just learned to ski less than a month ago!!)


okay, then after I packed the camera into my pocket (usually I put it in the interior pocket, but I quickly jammed it into my regular coat pocket), we got onto the chairlift. We were almost at the top, when we heard something fall into the trees below. Ughhh. it was my camera. damn. it was dark out too. and Eli was just about done with his lesson. Sooooo I had to ski down with emmett to the bottom, get Eli from his lesson... left emmett (cold tired and crabby) with the lesson director who is so nice.... Eli and I went back up to meet someone who was supposed to be coming from Guest Services with a flashlight. We got there, and I popped off my skis, hiked up and met two guys hunting. they found it, and all was well!!

finally!!!

yeah!!! snow!!!!

I love this waterfall as we drive up the driveway to emmett's school.
It was starting to be frozen yesterday.....


then this morning.....
there was finally a liberal dusting of snow that made it finally feel like winter!!!

firing no matter what....

I am so tired of this war and just wish it were done. I, along with many others, feel so powerless to do anything about it. When you read things like this (on wemovetocanada - she publishes a letter written by a marine who was there) about how the soldiers have to "fire no matter what".... it all just makes you realize how much we don't hear in the media.

We seem so disillusioned that we think we are told everything on the nightly news. Not even close. If we were really to have the atrocities that are occurring in Iraq on a daily basis, shown to us on a daily basis, we'd work even harder to get it to stop. Somehow. Bring our troops home. Enough. Why do we think we are solving everything anyway? We aren't.

Let our troops come home to their families. Be done with spending an incredible fortune on the war and perhaps spend it on saving something universal like our planet! We can all benefit from that. For those of us who have read books like Collapse: how societies choose to fail or succeed and When the Rivers Run Dry, and more. Our planet needs help and we need to figure out how to sustain what we have, not spend countless amounts of money trying to police others. Spend it on sustaining our existence. THAT we need.... this crazy war we don't.

amazing skies

The skies, the stars, the clouds and the colors found there has always made me stand in awe of the world we live in.

In the last few days, as I have driven in the afternoons over to pick up Eli from school, the skies and the clouds have been so incredibly beautiful and dramatic.
(make sure to click on each of these to see them full-sized)




even the puddles seemed to reflect their gold.....

they turned 40!

can't believe my little brother and sister are 40!!!

it really was only a few years ago that mom took this photo of me pushing you....


but it was 1982 that someone snapped these......

damage done......

Apparently this:

warrents this:


Someone hit my car in the parking lot of my little one's school the other day. And then he promptly drove away, with his bumper hanging from his Volvo. I luckily found out who it was, and called him to tell him that he had done damage to my car. He was incredibly apologetic, and was very genuine about it. He had driven away partly due to the fact that he was so stunned that his own bumper had fallen off... and he was not aware that he had damaged my car in the process. He promptly called his insurance and it will all be taken care of.

Today, a man arrived at my door with a huge bouquet of flowers. I couldn't imagine who would have sent them to me. But I wasn't surprised to see the card that came with it was an apology note from the man who had hit my car. I had been told he was an incredibly sweet person. Apparently this is true!

Happy New Year

We had fun last night going to see the early (6pm) fireworks in Bushnell Park. We went to supper early at City Steam Brewery first (which is in the old Brown Thompson Building) and it was great. The restaurant is fun with seating in tons of levels, and lots of up down activity, of patrons, waitstaff, etc. There is alot to look at and we kept the kids busy playing I Spy while we ate- the kids loved the waffle fries there, and I had a fabulous seared tuna with a great dipping sauce. (click the above link for the restaurant to see the view from our table).

It was so good to get out to some festivities for the night- although odd to have it so unseasonally warm, and not even need mittens or coats zippered up! But certainly made it a pleasant evening for walking around downtown Hartford.
Happy New Year to everyone!