finally another update

We've obviously been busy, but not with anything exciting. Just some school, activities and a little camping. I thought I would try to get something written before we head to Mammoth tomorrow for a week.

Some recent comments from the boys (mainly R) first:
1) We had some beautiful, huge snowflakes falling on Valentine's Day. While walking through them I was commenting on how pretty they were. R said, "Yeah, it looks like birds are pooping everywhere!" So much for the beauty.
2) While driving back from Portland a while back the boys were tired of sitting in the car. C told me he wanted to do something fun so I gave some recommendations of things he could do in his seat, but he didn't like those ideas. R then said he knew something fun to do. I asked him what and he replied, "Run around the house naked." He is always up for that.
3) While R was dressing the other day I over heard him say, "That's an abomination!" I was so shocked by the word he used I never did figure out if he was actually using it correctly.
4) T asked us what "sideous" meant because there is a character in Star Wars named Darth Sideous. A said he thought it meant evil or something like that. T said "I thought INSIDEOUS meant evil." Their vocabulary continues to amaze me.

I took the boys camping in our RV in Feb while A was in Portland for a week long study class to help with one of his tests. We went up the McKenzie River about an hour and camped at some hot springs. It was beautiful, but freezing. We had a snowball fight and then warmed up in the hot springs pool.

A has passed two of his tests so far and has one more to go. He is staying home from Mammoth this year to study all week and then take the test while we're gone. Once he passes this one he'll be able to start his new job on Apr 1. It's been a long time waiting for that start date. I am still anxiously awaiting Jun 1 though because that is when we'll have health insurance again.

It snowed here yesterday and there was a great snowball fight outside. Kemah even got involved. Before the snow the boys had been getting a lot of use out of their trampoline. They go out there no matter how cold it is as long as it's dry and will jump for hours.

C has been asking since June when he'll get to ski so I hope he likes it as much as he thinks he will next week. R and T don't want to take any lessons this year so I'll be spending most of my time on the bunny slopes with them which will be fun. I'm in no shape to go ski hard this year anyway so I'm looking forward to hanging out with them. I am going to try to convince R to take at least one lesson because I think he needs it and the instructor would be much more patient with him than I would be.

I finished my first knitted vest and it's so cute. Unfortunately my sizing is off so what was supposed to be for T fits C just right. I've almost finished R's now, but the sizing isn't much better. It's very wide and short. Hopefully his belly will fill it out. I'll try again with T's next, but it's frustrating having to rip so much out when I realize it's not going to be the right size. I restarted R's 3 times and it still didn't come out right. I did learn how to do cables up the front though and a checkerboard pattern. I'm not sure how I'm going to do T's yet. They love them though and want matching hats - we'll see if I get to those while their vests still fit them.