Valentine's 2021

 We enjoyed Karlotta's baby blessing last Sunday

We then joined some friends to eat food and watch the Super Bowl (in that order)

Look at that dangling front tooth. It came out this week

The kids helped make sugar cookies

Mason finally came to terms with the fact that he needs a real blanket and he is happy to be using this dinosaur comforter

Miss Lyza is a reading machine! She just exceeded ONE MILLION words for this school year. Good job Lyza!

We got to decorate the cookies last night

Someone had to finish off the icing

Kim helped plan a surprise 40th birthday party for her friend with yummy food and a night of pickleball

Enjoy your week and stay warm!

Lyza's Library

I just finished Wings of Fire: Talons Of Power. Talons of Power is book 9 of the Wings of Fire series. In Talons of Power an evil dragon from 2,000 years ago named Darkstalker (learn more about Darkstalker in Wings of Fire: Darkstalker) is released and the main character (Turtle) knows that Darkstalker is out there to kill him. If you want to read Wings of Fire: Talons of Power, make sure you read books 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8 first, otherwise it won’t make sense. So far it is my favorite  book in the series and I bet you’ll enjoy if you read it.

36 Isn't Old, Right?

 We have had beautiful weather and it has felt like spring

Kim found herself a new (to her) road bike

I don't look quite as good on it

It was sweet when our elderly neighbor helped Henry on his scooter

Good building skills Mason

Mason's blanket is on its last stitches. Shorty after this the two side completely detached and he now has two separate rags

He was really happy about this Lego creation

With an extra four kids for part of the day Kim's hands were full

They needed to get out of the house

A bridge over a bridge

I requested a pumpkin cheesecake for my birthday and Kim delivered

Friday night we ate at a friend's house and had birthday cake

Saturday morning the boys gave me some good snuggles

36 years old with a wonderful wife and four crazy (and also wonderful) children

The kids helped me open some presents

I got some cool and delicious stuff

Some of my favorite gifts were the ones Mason gave me

Kim surprised me and took me to an axe throwing place with friends

Kim had the honor of using one of these smaller "precision" axes

The rest of us used the larger ones

During one of the games when it was my turn we needed a bullseye. I delivered!

A turn or two later Kim was in the same position with her team and she got the bullseye they needed. Go team Keyes!

Here is a short video of each of us throwing

That was a fun group activity

Then we all went to dinner and had a great time

Take care and have a great week

No, you did not click on the wrong blog...we are talking about Skiing!

 Last week we left off with Mason's party for being potty trained. He asked for more than a week to have presents and gum at his party. We got him both but ran out of time on Saturday. So on Sunday we let him open some gum and a couple presents. 

We also got a picture of the kids together after church

We are so proud of Mason

Well, this isn't a mistake. We are going to spend most of the blog talking about skiing. Kim and I went skiing together for date night on Friday. We got there just after 3 and still had some day light.

We drove up through cloud and on it was clear on the mountain. You can see the cloud layer below. It looked really pretty.

We drove up with some friends

What a view

You can kind of see our shadow from the chair lift

We had a lot of fun. I felt much more confident than when I went a couple years ago. I had so much fun that I actually bought a pair of boots and skis. Looks like there will be more skiing this year.

Here is a video I put together of the trip. Admission: this video is way too long. I was trying out the Gopro and ended shooting everything at 4k60, which was really difficult for my computer to edit. So instead of trying to trim it down well, I just through in large clips.

I understand if you don't watch it all BUT you NEED to at least watch to the 2:45 mark ;)

Next time I go I am going to work on speed since I have proven to myself that I can go slow and slow myself down

Saturday we bought some Crumbl cookies to share

Saturday Kim took Nixon night skiing for his first time

Nixon's friend was there

We knew Nixon would be awesome but we didn't expect how fearless he would be

Here is a much better edited video of Nixon's skiing

This was the sunrise I saw this morning before heading off to church

It is time for the second installment of

Lyza's Library

Today I finished a book called The Brightest Night. It’s the 5^th book in a series called Wings of Fire. Wings of Fire is about 5 dragonets or baby dragons that are destined to save Pyrrhia from a great war. Wings of Fire is my favorite series. I think everyone should read it and if you do, make sure to read it in order; if you don’t it won’t make sense. Right now there are 14 books in the main series, 4 in winglets, 2 in legends and 4 graphic novels.

Take care