Earth Hour

Since I've been home since 1:30 this afternoon due to early dismissal because of the snow, I'm successfully pretending that we won't have school tomorrow. (Although I think we probably will...please keep snowing, please keep snowing.)
Maddy participating in her favorite snow time activity. I think I already have pictures of her "catching" snow, but here are a couple more.In my pretending I've been looking at some interesting blogs. I've found some information about Earth Hour. I've heard of this event before but wasn't really sure when it was so if you're interested too here is the information: http://www.earthhour.org/home/ . The idea is that you turn off your non-essential appliances, lights, electronics, etc. for one hour. Pretty easy, right? I'll be interested to hear if anyone plans on participating and what you'll be doing during this hour.

Hmm...

When I arrived at school this morning I was greeted with a blinking message light. I tried to think of why a parent would have called me over Spring Break... is there a reason one would be mad? Did I forget to do something?

I sat down to listen ready to write a message when I found I had been called by a likely bored 5th grader with a disguised voice. Now, I've gotten messages from students before and they've been the profane variety. This one however made me laugh out loud and quickly try to turn it on to speaker phone for the teacher who had just walked into my room.

Apparently I won 5th grade teacher of the century and have won a trip to Hawaii! I wish I could post the message on here but I'm not sure how. It was pretty funny and well disguised. The search is on for the culprit...although one student mentioned something about an award today. Hmm...

Sunny Sunday

Amanda and I spent the afternoon in Fort Collins. We ate outside at Coopersmiths, wandered around Old Town and then had cupcakes at the cupcakery. It was a very nice day, almost hot, and a great way to end Spring Break. That does not mean that I'm ready to go back to work tomorrow though. I, as always, need at least one more day.

Spring Break

For Spring Break Paul and I went to Idaho to visit Kevin. We left on Saturday and took a smaller plane. We flew right over Loveland and did our best to figure out where we lived.

Once we made it to Ketchum from Boise (2.5 -3 hour drive) Kevin made us dinner, which included Halibut and orzo with Craisins and almonds. It was very good. Then we went out on the town. He took us to a couple of his favorite bars and we met up with some of his friends. The next morning, err almost afternoon, we set out to explore. Unfortunately the weather was not cooperating. It was snowy and wet all day. We went and had hot dogs across the street from the ski lift and then had a Bowl of Soul in town. The bowl of soul is coffee, expresso and hot chocolate. It is VERY good but more than we needed. That night we went to see "Forever Plaid" and of course had to dress the part. Luckily Kevin had enough plaid for us all. The next day it was still rainy/snowy but we headed to Craters of the Moon, which is about 1.5 hours from Ketchum. We spent quite a bit of time in the visitors center there because the wind was blowing about 20 mph, it was raining and about 30 degrees. We had lunch in the car as this big black bird looked on. The poor bird just about blew over a couple of times. We decided that the snowshoeing wasn't going to happen and headed back to Ketchum. We stopped a couple of places along the way. On St. Patrick's Day we went skiing. Paul and I haven't skiied in a VERY LONG time, maybe 8 years and were a little apprehensive. After a few runs we got the hang of it again. There is a big difference between skiing in Idaho and in Colorado. The main difference is there are hardly any people. We maybe shared the runs with 5 other people... at most.

After skiing we went to a local bar, Grumpy's, and had schooners (32 oz. beers for $4.75) and dinner. The beers were cold and the food was good. The Ketchum Irish Club was even there.From there we went out on the town again.On the 18th we headed up towards Stanley in hopes of some snowshoeing and hot springs. Just outside of town we realized that the road from Stanley to Boise was closed so we found a spot to snowshoe and eat lunch then took the same road back to Boise.

We had a great time with Kevin and have a few things on our list to do when we go back, maybe this summer.

Clumsy Dog

Well Maddy and I share at least one trait. She and I are both very clumsy. I currently have a pretty awesome bruise from running into the corner of a filing cabinet at work. Maddy, who has already lost one pad, has again broken the same spot open. We have new neighbors in the house next door who happen to have a very small, very fat white Chihuahua. Maddy isn't use to it being there yet so of course every time they're both outside there is a lot of barking and jumping at the fence. Since the fence line is lined with rock she's jumping at the fence in the rock. Apparently that is enough to tear open her old wound. When will she ever learn?