Tanner's Lunch Date!

**Today's post brings us up to date! Yay!! Make sure you scroll down as there have been a lot of posts the past few days :) 

Tanner's "girl"friend Kaylee had Monday off from school along with her mom so they wanted to have a playdate with Tanner. Unfortunately we had a makeup day because of all the snow. Instead of missing another chance Kaylee met Tanner at school for lunch! They brought Chick-fil-a and had a great time with each other! Tanner was the happiest boy the rest of the day :)

Noah and Auntie Ann's Birthday!

Noah turned 31 on Saturday and Auntie Ann turned 50 on Sunday. Mimi and Auntie Deb came down to celebrate and we spent the weekend with lots of fun activities. Saturday we went over to Auntie's house for a big breakfast after letting Noah sleep in a little and giving him his presents - a new grill which we will all enjoy! After breakfast we all went bowling and then to Shogun. We took the kids home and headed out to The Eagle's Nest for some fun with some great friends. We had never been there but had an awesome time and will certainly go back!

Sunday morning we were all a little hungover, but I got up with the kids and then Noah kept Izzy, Tanner and Rowan so Amy and I could go celebrate Ann's 50th at Croc's Drag Yourself to Brunch. We all had a great time and we're so glad we got to celebrate both Noah and Ann's birthday together with friends and family!

Valentine's Day

This year we made Noah 14 valentines, one for each day in February leading up to valentines day. It was fun and the kids couldn't wait to get his treat out each day. I got to chaperone the middle school dance and Noah had to work late so there was no special date for us but we had a nice day anyway and have been enjoying each other's company whenever we can.

Chicks Dig Super Heros!

You're My Main Squeeze and You Blow Me Away Valentines!

Noah hates commercial holidays and usually doesn't do much for them but this year I got a delivery of two dozen roses, chocolates, bath salts, and a teddy bear! It was quite a surprise :) The kids had a great time at school and reading their new books from us. 

It was also the 100th day of school so there were some crazy celebrations for that as well!!

Hope everyone was able to show the love on this special day!

Sunny Florida!

February 5-9 Noah and I took 15 students to Orlando for the DECA Sports and Entertainment Conference. We were so excited to get away from the snow and get to the warm sun....so of course that means that it was rainy and cold the whole time we were there! While the weather was miserable, the students were not and we had a great time anyway. DECA does a great job making this conference fun and full of great information so we love going every year and playing in the parks isn't so bad either :) This year we visited both Universal parks and Magic Kingdom, went to the Blue Man Concert, and heard from speakers from Universal, the NBA, NASCAR, and more!

Snow Tubing

We took the kids and my parents to Massanutten for the last weekend in January to spend some time with my mom before she had surgery and started treatments. We weren't able to get the kids in ski school like we had planned but we had a blast at the water park on Saturday. Tanner rode every big slide which is huge for him since he doesn't like rides at all and other than my mild heart attack when I couldn't find Izabel (Noah had taken her to the bathroom but I didn't know) we all had a blast.

Sunday we got up early and hit the first snow tubing session so it wouldn't be as crowded as later in the day. I was worried about how the kids (mainly Tanner) would do with the big hill in a tube by himself but they both did great and LOVED it. We will definitely be going back with them lots of times and getting them into ski school too!

More Snow!

As if 4-5" wasn't exciting for us....we followed that up with 8-9" the next week! This shut almost our whole area down for three days and even Noah got to stay home a little later each morning. I know everyone makes fun of how we get out of school for what northerners see as a little bit of snow....but for a beach area that hardly ever gets snow and has no equipment to deal with it, this a big deal. The kids had a great time playing outside and enjoying the sled and more snow than they have ever seen and I enjoyed some down time at home with them :)

Snow Days!

I realize 4-5" to our northern friends and family members doesn't sound like much...but to people from Virginia Beach it's enough for three days out of school and lots of excitement! I'm pretty sure the kids were more excited about the snow on Tuesday night than they were about Santa coming on Christmas Eve. We got a pretty good amount of snow Tuesday night and ended up with Wednesday and Thursday out of school because of super icy roads and really low temperatures. We were up, dressed, fed, and outside by 7:30am on Wednesday morning because of all the anticipation. We ended up playing outside 3 separate times with movies and hot chocolate in between to warm up. 

Thursday morning we slept a little later and then I sent the kids out to play (where I could easily see them) while I kept warm and got some work done. 

**Side note - I know a lot of people think teachers are lazy and get off easy when we have bad weather days, but we still have work to do and it is much harder to get it done at home! We will have to make this time up and all of the things that I needed to get done by Monday for the end of the semester still have to get done from home!!

The kids ended up playing outside for almost 2 hours before I finally made them come in for lunch. In the afternoon we went to see the new movie "The Nut Job" to get out of the house for a little while. Today (Friday) we are home again. It was already scheduled to be a teacher work day so the kids did not have school and they decided to offer teachers the incentive to work from home. They have done this in the past to help with morale. I think they planned on offering it anyway but since the roads are still icy in a lot of places it was nice for teachers to have the choice to go in or not. 

They are calling for more snow tomorrow and next week so we'll see how it plays out. For now we are enjoying our lazy mornings and playing in the snow that can't melt since it can't seem to get out of the 20s around here.