Oh My Goodness - More Snow!!

Holy global warming Batman! Two serious snows in one Winter?!? Thank goodness friends handed down to Clay some snow bibs last week ... they are put to use! It's been coming down about 2 hrs and already a couple inches accumulation. I got my work done, so now I can relax, open a homebrew and enjoy the view :)

I don't think I've posted any pictures of this new place yet - here's our sweet little house we've been in for about a month now:

Looking down the road:

Clay built a chilly chair:


Reed making homebrew pictures in the snow (heck no, I don't let him dump out homebrew! This was the one bottle of the batch that he completely bottled and labeled himself, so he got to do as he wished with it :)
Stay warm under your snowy blanket, sweet rosemary!

Reed's project for the morning was using every Duplo he could find to build a tower (he took about a dozen pics of this)
I'm sure as this snow continues into the night we'll have more pictures to share. Supposed to get 5-9 inches tonight.

And now the boys are inside and shivering and waiting for hot cocoa water to boil. Here's a frugal recipe for ya:

**Hot Cocoa Mix**

• 10 cups dry milk powder (1 8 qt package)
• 4 cups powdered sugar
• 1-3/4 cups cocoa powder (we like SaCo's Dutch Cocoa)
• 1-3/4 cups powder creamer (6 oz jar)
• 3-4 heaping Tbs. cinnamon
  

Mix this all up in your biggest mixing bowl. Store in glass jar or gallon ziplock bag. To use: scoop 1/4 cup mix into mug. Add enough milk to moisten mix (this isn't necessary, we just like it extra creamy). Fill to top of mug with hot water. Kids like to top with ice cream, marshmallows, or various peppermint candies if we've got 'em!

Great Wolf Lodge

In my quest to find new things to do to keep the kids active during the Winter, my friend Amanda and I discovered that the Great Wolf Lodge has a homeschool discount! This is only a couple hours away, in Charlotte. The huge indoor water park is only available for hotel guests. So during the week, the place was practically empty (no lines!!).

The morning we left, Clay counted out all the money we had saved for the trip (which was used in the arcade)

Excited to have finally arrived!


The main play area - 3 stories of wet goodness - that giant bucket on top, to the left dumps about every 10 minutes with a gigantic splash...

The wave pool - this was a huge hit

Clay and his friend doing the obstacle course:


And Reed having a go:



The boys especially loved the big water slides, but I couldn't snap any decent photos of that - they were really fun tho (except that I realized how terribly out of shape I am when I felt about to collapse after each time climbing all those stairs!).

At night, the boys weren't ready to quit yet, so they went to the hotel arcade:


Some choice photos from Reed, who was in awe of the candy shop!





We're supposed to get another huge snow here in Asheville tonight... let's hope our power stays on this time! Now I need to go work on listing all the thrift store goodies on ebay, that I bought on our "big city" trip :)

Stay warm everyone!

Waynesville Rec Center

These Winter gray days are not only depressing, but also keep us indoors way too much! I'm finding myself frustrated that by homeschooling, my kids don't have access to a gym or PE class or recess or whatever during the Winter months and they really need an outlet - if anyone knows of cheap or free things to do and get some serious energy out (not classes, just free play), please let me know!!

Yesterday and the day before were free days at the Waynesville Rec Center which is about 30 minutes from Asheville. The kids love it there, and I get to get some swimming in the lap pool which always feels good...Clay on the waterslide

Our friend Ellen, and Reed feelin the flow


Stay warm everyone!

Snow Day!

Wow - we really had a good snow!! The kids were so excited and haven't had such a great snow since we lived in Colorado. There was about 18", nice and fluffy for a day or two. I wish I had gotten more pictures.

These are from the first day of the snow, when it had snowed only a few inches. That night our power went out (including heat) and stayed off for 4 days. We stayed at a friends house in West Asheville. His neighbors had made a HUGE sledding ramp with a jump for all the kids to play on. We also made quite the variety of snow creations - slides, forts, snow monsters, snow dogs and probably more. Asheville sees a snow like this about once a decade - glad we were here for it!

Snow punk
Reed loving it!

Clay was near impossible to photograph being still

Spreading the Holiday Cheer (or Sugar Rush)

The boys had their friend Gabe over to decorate cookies. We made all sorts of treats to send as Christmas presents this year - fudge, cookies, 7-layer cookies and even cheese balls (cause we're cheezy like that)...

Clay making sure there would be no way we could ship his cookie, so he'd have to eat it :)

Apple Pickin' & Halloween

A few families from the Asheville Unschoolers group went down to Hendersonville to go apple picking. Always a good time and fun for the kids to walk around just tasting so many different kinds of apples!



This Halloween, we've officially evolved out of cute lovable costumes to ones that are trying to be scary ... ah, the joy of boys! I made both boys costumes - Reed's the early (Jack Nicholson) Joker, and Clay is the Grim Reaper - fortunately for me, both boys picked easy-to-make costumes!

We went to a Homeschool Halloween Party with our little friend, Leah

The gang of young boys in a rare moment of near-stillness (I think cake was involved)

The actual day, just before the boys' dad took them trick-or-treating

BRPW Waterfall Hike

Here's a random hike we took in the early Fall on the Blue Ridge Parkway, with our friend Jay. It's name is escaping me right now, but it was across from the Looking Glass Rock overlook. Great hike, a few minutes from asheville and beautiful with it's dusting of yellow leaves...








Reed finding his balance, and Clay taking a contemplative moment

We had to take a whole series of photos of Reed pretending to fall in the frigid water - I'll spare you and only put up one of those :)


When Reed actually did go in the ice cold water

I am so grateful that Clay is not as clumsy as his mama

Even mama got in on one shot