Baby it's cold outside...

Brrrrrrrr!
Winter has hit hard here in the Northeast. I really try not to complain about the weather, I mean I live in Vermont - DUH! My neighbor/friend/workout buddy exclaimed to me one 5:30am day last week when it was below zero - "I'm freezing! I am so ready for winter to be over!" I replied, "Beth, you need a winter hobby!"

So, this is not a complaint, just some comments for those of you not living this with us!

Two weekends ago my thermometer read -24 degrees. Can you believe that? Have you ever seen that temperature on a thermometer? I have heard that number before, but usually when wind chill is taken into consideration. Nope, this was actual temperature that morning. Did we stay in and hibernate you might ask? No, of course not! Jack was at Bolton Valley both Saturday and Sunday! I went with him on Saturday and the temperature up there never got above -11. I took 4 runs, two before my lunch and hot chocolate and 2 after. I think that is pretty good! Why was I at the mountain you might ask? Well, Mike was home with hair dryers trying to thaw our heating pipes. Didn't work - even after 8 hours! $250 later the plumber thawed the pipe in 1 1/2 hours.

This weekend the temperatures were again below zero and I was at Bolton both Saturday and Sunday. Why was I there again and not Mike? Yup, you guessed it, frozen pipes again. This time we got a deal from the plumber so it was only $199. Also, only took Mike an hour to realize he should call him! We have a vent cut in our basement ceiling in the area where the pipes froze hoping this will help prevent this again.

Other than that, things are good! Jack is on the Bolton Valley Snowboard Team and practices with them every Saturday and Sunday. He loves it. He is set to be in his first "slope style" competition Wednesday night (1/28). Wish him luck! He has never done this and doesn't really have a routine practiced, but he has to start somewhere. I'm psyched for him!

AJ and Emma are both on snowboards as well and I took 5 runs on mine last weekend. It was not horrible, but still hard to go back to the beginning again! I would just like to master skiing and not worry about riding! Only if that were acceptable to this family!

AJ and Emma are both playing indoor soccer and loving it. AJ is also playing basketball and Jack has every other week baseball clinics, so we are not having a slow winter as we did last year! However, everyone is moving, staying warm and still finding "Highs" each day to talk about over dinner during "High and Low."

We had a great Christmas/New Year's holiday! Both Mike and I were off for 2 weeks, it was awesome! The weather did not really cooperate for as much skiing/riding as we would have liked, but we had a great time anyway with family and each other. AJ exclaimed it was his best Christmas ever. Wonder if the inappopriate gifts he received (air rifles and combat Wii games) had anything to do with that!? We spent a lot of time with Patrick, Cristin, Tegan and Finn and then David, Kaleigh and Declan came up for a few days. Amy had to stay home as Elsie had a double ear infection! We really missed them - I have not seen Elsie since she was a BABY, but had a great time with who was here. We made it to Bolton Landing for a long weekend after Christmas and caught up with most of Mike's family! The kids love hanging with their cousins! Rita again cooked like mad for a zillion people each night and Tom had us trying great wine. WE had a blast.



I'm attaching some great pics from our holidays.

David and Kaleigh riding at Bolton - it was cold! These southerners did great!

No, we are not being invaded by little white men! These are the 48 snowman cupcakes Mike and I made for Aidan & Emma's classes! Aren't they cute?!?


Kids on Christmas morning with all their loot!


Christmas Eve at the Malle's!


Dex would not put down that shovel! He came around to sledding though! Lots of smiles!


The Fam:
Cristin, Finn and Patrick
Finn and Dex - the three year olds!
The Girls! Emma, Kaleigh and Tegan
Emma and Tegan
Declan and David


Hope yours were just as memorable!

The Day After...

Well, the 6th Annual Whitney Christmas Party is over, but it is definitely one for the record books! Here are some of the numbers for you!

* People attended: 48
* Yankee Swap gifts: 34
* Beers spilled on rug - 2 (that I know about!)
* Empty wine bottles - 10
* Empty beer cases - 6
* Empty vodka bottles - 1
* Karaoke songs sung - many, many, many!
* Karaoke songs sung well - very few!
* Table dancers - 6
* Fires - 1
* Number of guests pulled over on the way home - 1
* Number of tickets issued - 0 (Phew!)
* Years the chicken pitcher has made it to the Yankee Swap - 6
* Time the last guests left: 2:45am

It was an absolute blast and wish I had photos to prove it! Will have to remember that next year. In the mean time my memory will have to suffice and I will not soon forget:

Kelly dancing on the table
Carney wearing Laura's red leather jacket
The candle on the mantle catching fire and the smoke detector going off
The soot covering my wall and ceiling
Peter flying across the coffee table on his belly
The mistletoe belt
The picture of Mike asleep at Fenway that made it to the Yankee Swap
All of the karaoke songs

Can't wait until next year!

Happy Labor Day!

It's Labor Day and instead of sleeping in like I should have (especially after arriving home at 11:30 last night from taking AJ and Emma to the Jonas Brothers concert - can you say SCREAMING girls??) I got up at 6:45 to run with my "girls." And thank goodness for them as I would never haul my butt out of bed if they were not pushing me to do so! It looks like it will be a beautiful day here today so it was a nice, albeit a bit stiff, 4.4 miles!

Labor Day is the day we celebrate the working people, right? So I'd like to celebrate my Dad who worked so hard every day of his life (and continues to do so part-time even though he turned 70 yesterday!). Thanks Dad! Thanks for getting up every day and going in there, even when some days (or years) I know it was painful for you to do so!

And my Mom - yes she took time off when we were little (thanks Dad for being cool with that), but went back to teaching as soon as we were in school. She had jobs she loved and jobs she did not enjoy, but went into the classroom every day to help Dad put all 4 of us through school - amongst other things that they helped with but didn't need to!

Like when I graduated from college and had no job and no money. I moved to Boston and my parents paid my rent until I found a job. And, when I got an offer that would have removed their "rent liability" but I just did not feel good about the job, Mom said - "Don't take it!" Thanks again Mom and Dad!

And Mike. He actually likes going to Burton every day, but thanks Mike for never complaininig as I cut my hours more and more without figuring out how we were going to do it financially! Now if he would only let me quit!

And lastly - a shout out to all my "Mom" friends who know what REAL labor is!

Happy Labor Day!

Hey Now You're an All Star

Ok, I'm so lame! Both my boys made the All Star teams for baseball - IN JUNE! I'm just now getting to telling you all about it and I think my bragging rights are good for a few more months anyway, right?

For any of you who don't have kids playing baseball let me just sum up All Stars in a few words - YOU LOSE YOUR SUMMER! And, as you all know the summers in Vermont are so short, it's quite a lot to put on a family. I thought this would be the year with no All Stars. The teams for for 11/12 year olds (mostly 12 year olds I thought) and 9/10 year olds (mostly 10 year olds I thought) so with a 9yo and an 11yo I thought we would be safe. Oh no!

We are in Maine in June for a soccer tournament. I get a phone call from a friend. It went something like this:
"They posted All Stars."
"Really?"
"Yup. Jack made it."
"Oh....great?"

Ok, so Jack made All Stars. I give him the news and he is psyched! Then my friend told me that they received a call about her younger sons from the 9/10 coach that morning. So I call to check my messages. AJ made All Stars. I start to cry. LITERALLY! AJ says, "Mom are you crying cause you are so happy?" "Yes AJ, I am."
NOT!!
I was so exhausted after our 7 day a week soccer and baseball schedule from the spring I could not imagine it extending into my summer!

However, it's not all about me, right? (Is it ever about me???)

Suffice it to say both boys were excited. Mike helped out a lot with both teams and they played really well. AJ's team made it to the second round but lost fairly quickly and Jack's team didn't make it out of the first round. I think both boys learned a lot about baseball and also about humility as they didn't see a lot of playing time but they were both happy to see it end and get their summer started. As always, Mike and I are so proud of both of them.

Emma, not to be left out, was the MOST AMAZING TROOPER YOU EVER HAVE MET! She went to every game (driving here and there) and giving up a lot of afternoon pool time as Jack had to be available for 3:00 practice time. I was so proud of her willingness to be dragged around and support her "chubbies." She actually made out well finanacially for the 11/12 year old games were held at our home field (oh yeah, did I tell you I was responsible for staffing the snack bar during all of these home games?) and she went around passing the hat for donations (with an adult of course) and was able to keep the change every time! One night she made $3! They actually were bummed when she was not there as they made more when she was around!

Here are some pictures of the All Stars (all three of them!)







AJ played second base. This guy was out at first!! Nice play AJ!


Safe!!


Jackie at first:

Road Rash 2008

Thank God for Helmet Laws!!




Where did the summer go? I promise to send more updates regarding baseball and our summer, but I had to get this one on here first.

I can't believe some of you did not know about Jack's bike accident in mid July. He was coming home from the baseball fields, about 8:00 at night and somehow ended up sliding down a hill on his right side with his bike on top of him. He has no idea even how it happened. We visited the site later and other than his blood on the sidewalk, we could not see anything obvious that caused him to fall. It was unbelievable.

He picked himself up and rode his broken bike with a bent wheel and messed up gears the 400 yards or so back to our house. Thankfully, Mike had the stomach to really take a look at his injuries. His right elbow was a mess of blood and skin and we think even some bone. There was some white stuff sticking out that I could not even really look at. Mike took him to the hospital and he ended up with 8 stitches!

After the stitches came out - thanks Uncle John - there was still a HUGE crater of puss and gore on his elbow but it has healed now. The elbow is a scarred mess, but the area where the stitches are is beautiful!

Here are some pics to keep you interested!!

Here are Jack's stitches - taken from Mike's cell phone at the hospital - as they were bandaged up for a time afterwards!





Here is a look at the knee...




More injuries - note the bruise on his left thigh from the bike landing on him!

"Mixed Tunes"

Yesterday I was looking for something to listen to in my car. I usually listen to books on cd, I'm a geek, I know, but had none and remembered that there is a cd storage area in the front of my minivan, just below the radio. I had totally forgotten it was there. Imagine my surprise when I open it to find all my long lost Bruce, REO and Journey cds, not to mention a Dixie Chicks and Fleetwood Mac with the plastic still on it! I wondered where those cds went off to!

I also found a bunch of casette tapes. They were all kids music (Raffi, Disney tunes, a mix David made for my niece Kaleigh and copied for me) with the exception of one black, well worn TDK. It is labeled "Mixed Tunes" in my hand writing. There was no case, so I had no idea what music would be on it. I was so excited, I couldn't wait to fire it up.

Ok, I was mostly psyched with the tunes, with the exception of a few Chicago songs. What could I have been thinking when I added those?

It was so great listening as I didn't know what song would come next, or in some cases, more weird that I knew exactly what song would come next right down to the "sssshwhwhwoss" sound that came after a minute or so into "Good Lovin" when someone (most likely me) mistakenly recorded over the finished tape before I knew to punch out those little squares in the top!

It was so fun listening to that music! Kenny Chesney (yup, I like country too) wrote a song called "I go back" about how one song can so instantly and so clearly take you back to a time and a place or to a person in your past. It's amazing how that works! This tape took me back in general to 1985, but specific songs really brought images of people and places!

At the risk of humiliating myself to everyone I know and love, here is the actual song list:

Side A
Twist and Shout - the Beatles
Coast to Coast - the Stompers (YES, the are on iTunes!)
New Years Day - U2
Street of Dreams - Rainbow (my prom theme in 1984)
Big Country - Big Country
Bad Moon Rising - CCR
In the Air Tonight - Phil Collins
Shout - Tears for Fears
Pink Cadillac - Bruce
Boys of Summer - Don Henley
Run to you - Bryan Adams
Do it again - the Kinks

Side B
Teacher Teacher - .38 Special
Love Calling - David Bowie
Let's go crazy - Prince
Dancing in the dark - Bruce (the dance version! "I check my look in the mirror - mirror, mirror!" and "You say you gotta stay hungry - oh oh oh!" and don't forget the xylophone! Oh man, guess we can thank Julianne for this one?)
Good Lovin - Rascals
When you close your eyes - Night Ranger
You the inspiration - Chicago (What is this doing here?)
Missing You - Tom Waite
Hard Habit to break - Chicago (again What is this doing here?)
Downbound Train - Bruce
The Beautiful Ones - Prince (didn't even know this was a song, who actually made this tape?)

So there you have it. Hope I have not diminished your thoughts of me by this honesty but maybe, just maybe, I took you back to some time or place or some person in your past. If you want a copy of this tape, just let me know. I'm sure I can borrow Danny's box again to copy it tape to tape!

Spring Hibernation

I know that most folks think that hibernation starts in the fall and that spring brings awakening! Well, not in our house. I just put our spring sports schedule on one page and don't expect to see any friends, make it to my neighborhood happy hour, have a family dinner or clear off my desk until late June! Jack is playing baseball. That's Monday, Wednesday some Fridays and some Saturdays folks. He's playing in the Majors for the Astros. He has been pitching, catching (his first love) and playing infield. His batting average is above 500! AJ (formerly known as Aidan, but now renamed AJ since third grade) is in the Farm League (just below Majors) and playing for the A's. That is on Tuesdays, Thursdays, some Fridays and some Saturdays. He is catching, pitching, playing infield and outfield. Guess he is all over the place, but again, pitching and catching are his faves. He is also playing club soccer which is on Mondays, Fridays, Sundays and some Saturdays. Mother's Day dinner will be spent in Vergennes watching a 6pm game! Emma is also playing club soccer and that is 2pm on Saturdays.

Did I mention I'm co-chairing the Little League Snack Bar? Gum, pizza, gatorade, soft pretzels and candy anyone? I am in there every Wednesday night for over 4 hours, some Fridays and some Saturdays. Can you say over committed?

Thankfully, we all love to be at the ball fields and the weather has been pretty nice. It was very chilly last week, but has warmed up this week.

Everyone here is doing well, Thank You God as my friend Mary Fitz would say. Healthy and happy and dirty!

Here's to lots of hits, throw downs, steals, goals, assists and no injuries!