Snowzilla

What can I say - Snowzilla has been a blast and it just keeps going.  No school since last Thursday and who knows when they'll go back.  Hank and Gus are in heaven!  We all are actually.  Matt has been outside playing with the boys all day everyday since it started snowing on Friday.  We've gone for walks outside that make us feel like we're in Vermont. We got about 23 inches and it has just been beautiful.  The city remains virtually at a standstill since they haven't plowed most neighborhoods yet (yes, this is 2 days later) so everyone is still stuck at home.  No complaints from our kids, big or small, although Maman won't mind everything finally goes back to "normal".  Knowing DC that won't be for a few more days so in the meantime we'll play in the snow! 

The Big House

So its been some time since I've updated the old blog with our progress on our new house project.   As you may recall, we purchased a home back in June of 2013 with the intention of doing a major renovation on it before we moved in. Well, we worked on a renovation plan for about 6 months before realizing that it ultimately did not make much sense to try and save the house.  So we scratched those plans and started all over again. Six months after that we had plans we loved enough to begin the bidding and permitting process.  That took some time as well.  We finally broke ground on the house in the summer of 2015 and we've been making slow but steady progress ever since.

Current expected move in date is end of 2016, although I am approaching this entire project with a great skepticism that does not allow me to believe that's possible.  We'll see.  What I can say for sure is that the house will be fabulous when it's done.  We've put a lot of thought into the design and we are so excited to see it coming together.  It will be a wonderful place for our family to grow up in and all of this waiting will be worth it in the end.

Below you can see some pics of the project so far - I promise to be better about documenting this process for here on out.

Phase 1:  The Teardown

Phase 2: The Big Dig

Phase 3:  The Foundation

The guest bedroom (where the ladder is)

The bay window in the dining room

The basement which looks massive like this...

Surveying his castle

Phase 4: Framing

The front entry

The second story going up

The house from the front, pre garage

The house from the front, now with the garage on the left

The kitchen, looking at the wall that will house our cabinets and range/oven.  

The double height family room, adjacent to the kitchen

The master bedroom.  The boys are in the bathroom and the closet is to Matt's left. 

Happy 2016!

We ended 2015 in style with a fabulous family vacation to Breckenridge, CO to celebrate Christmas.  We left the humid, warm and still very green DC behind for the snow packed Rockies and some seriously good skiing conditions.  We were lucky to have Aunts Alice and Whitney, along with their husbands Brian and Ryan, join us for the fun.

Whitney, Ryan and the girls on Christmas morning

Gus had his first ski school experience; the initial excitement that he was finally getting to do something that Hank has been doing for some time wore off quickly when he realized that a) mom and dad weren't attending with him and b) Hank would be in a different class.  At any rate, he learned how to stop and actually did quite well the one day we took him for a few runs with us big kids.  

Hank did very well at ski school, taking the chair lift up the big hills and focusing on getting those skis parallel between turns.  We were pretty proud of his progress.

The girls were super well behaved on the plane and for their babysitter, Annie, who came along with us.  They adjusted well to the elevation and even had their first playing in the snow experience, in spite of the chilly temperatures.

Kelly the Elf

The morning after we got 8 inches of powder

Matt and I skied for 7 days in a row, a record for me.  The snow was great so it was hard to resist, even though it was really pretty cold when we were there. This led to short but sweet ski days with nice long lunches in between runs, just the right speed for us. 

The boys in the hot tub after a long day on the slopes

Family photo

Brothers

Dad and June

Glamour girls - they have no hair for the bows they got in their stockings so we just wrapped the whole thing around their heads 

Hank in his R2D2 hoodie

Pretty girls in their Christmas dresses

First snow 

Matt making his way through Dulles at the end of the trip.  Hank and Dylan are in the stroller, June is in a carrier on me and Gus is riding on his back.  Yeesh.

All in all it was a great trip that we will remember for some time.  Lots of great food, great drink, fresh air and playing silly games with our siblings, both young and old.  

We have chosen to stay home this New Year's Eve partly because we've been out a lot in the last two weeks but mainly because we are old and we want to go to bed early :) This marks our 8th wedding celebration anniversary (not to be confused with our actual wedding anniversary, January 27th).  Time flies when you are having fun and having way too many kids!  Can't wait to curl up in front of a good movie with my honey after feasting on his Big Green Egg created dinner.

As for 2016 - I'm not usually one for making a big deal out of resolutions since they never seem to stick but I have a couple for this coming year: 

1.  Take more pictures of our family and appear in more of them myself! I don't know why but it is just not my natural instinct to snap a lot of photos and I wish I could remember to take more.  Maybe I just need to resolve to do it?! 

2.  Try out one new recipe every week.  That will mean 52 new recipes will be attempted this year...chances are that some will be keepers. This week's recipe:  Vinegar Glossed Chicken with Cheesy Grits and Roasted Brussel Sprouts from Mad Hungry. 

3.  Lumping together these three because they are just so g'damned basic that I'm annoyed I even have to "work" towards including them in my daily life:  Exercise (like just any kind of exercise, any at all), Drink More Water (used to be good at this when I went to an office but can't seem to do it at home for some reason), and Floss.  Really, I'm 37.  Why is it hard to remember to floss?! 

Wishing you all a great start to the new year - make it a good one!