Speeeeeed!

Today we went out to Uncle Jim's to try out snowmobiling with Benjamin.  He had a little lesson from Uncle Jim then very quickly got comfortable enough to zoom around the lake on his own (he informed us later that he reached 70mph ugh!).  Liesl even road on the machines, which is pretty impressive since she really does not like loud noises.  I think the fact that she had my cousin's pink helmet made everything happy!

This may have been B's favorite activity of the whole visit.  Big thanks to Jim and Jodie for letting us play with the snowmobiles for an afternoon!  It was so cold outside that my camera battery died before getting a good video, bummer!

Benjamin Visits!

Liesl's  cousin Benjamin is visiting from Florida this week.  He has not really experienced snow or cold weather much so we are trying to do as many things as we can to give him a good taste of MN winter fun!  We started out with sledding in the 25-50mph gusts of wind and 15 degree weather (why not?).  Then somehow I convinced Dave and Benjamin to do the Polar Bear Plunge!  This entails you and about 800 other crazy people to jump in to Lake Superior!  The temp was around 15 and they had to clear the ice chunks out of the jumping area.  We quickly made phone calls to raise the required funds, for the Special Olympics (no this was not just for kicks, it was a great cause).  I think Benjamin could definitely be a Minnesotan (if only we could get him to zip up his jacket!). A great first 2 days don't you think!?

Benjamin was really questioning our sanity as we made him put on layer after layer after layer.  When we got outside he began to understand.

Whoa!!!

10 for originality 8 for skill

Minnesota fashion!

Liesl went into hyper show and tell mode the moment B arrived! 

toasty toes

learning letters - what a good cousin!

Through the polar bear to the lake!

Check out the Slush!!!  Brrrrrr!

Here They Go!!!!!!!!

Still smiling and alive afterward!

Winter Fun!

Winter is flying by.  We have been having so much fun skiing, making forts, doing art projects, and learning to fly.  Liesl and Dave spend many weekend mornings jumping off of things in every fashion you can imagine trying to get lift off.  Here is a hodge podge of photos for you.

Beautiful night for playing outside in the fluff!

snow in the eyes!

we have dug a snow fort around our largest tree in the yard.

when you are in the fort you must hide from every person walking by,  so this means most time is spent on the ground .

what a great winter for playing outside!!

Liesl has also been doing cross-country ski lessons this year.  The program is really fun.  The very last day there is a race for the kids and Liesl rocked it! If you notice one ski is broken, lucky for us that happened after the race or we might have had a real problem.  So I guess since she loves it so much we are now looking for "fast skis" as Liesl likes to call them.

She was soooooo proud of finishing the race.  It was 1/2 K through the woods, without us.  She just took off and about 5 minutes later there she was racing for the finish line with a huge grin on her face. 

Sad ski, I guess we won't be handing these down to anyone!

Liesl has also decided that she will be an Artist when she grows up.  So we have been practicing many different kinds of art.  This day we were sculptors.

Concentration!

Liesl named each sculpture.  This is Star Flower.

From Left to Right - Curl Cottage, Star Flower, Cake Top, Fairy Twinkle Star, and Twinkle Cottage.