New Restaurant

For the second month in a row, our night out without Little Man was cancelled; last month because of a snow storm, this month because the babysitter has the flu.  Rather than give up in defeat, we went out to a new restaurant as a family.  We have been wanting to try out a restaurant called Prohibition Pig for a few months now and so we set out.  Little Man did great since it took a while for us to get our food.  The food was local and tasted good, however, it was really, really loud in the restaurant, so loud you could not hear the person right next to you. We would go back again, however, it is not on our top 10 list at this point.   

Cold

What do you do when single to negative digits are expected all week?

Plant stuff inside!

Montreal Adventure

One would think I would have learned after the first pre-kid trip, that Montreal in January is really stinking cold.  Yet, today I found myself traveling with three other families two hours north to Montreal for Dim Sum, the Underground City and IKEA.  Yes our final destination was IKEA. 

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To start the trip off, we set a Dim Sum place in China Town as out meeting location.  The food was great and the kids had their own table (we did have to occasionally confiscate the chopsticks).  Not only this, we realized the one of the families has been there many more times then the rest of us, when they walked in and received hugs from the wait staff.  This worked to our advantage later, when we realized that there were items that were not floating around on the carts, that you could order, such as duck...... it was wonderful.  With our bellies full, we set out for the Underground City.

Once we realized that life was a lot more fun above ground than under, we decided to brave the 3 degree temperatures and emerge from the underground city.  The kids soon found this really cool musical art sculpture in front of one of the art museums.  The kids spent several minutes running back and forth through the structure while the parents contemplated running over to the Starbucks across the road for a nice warm drink. 

Once all the kids were thoroughly frozen and stuffed with pastries from a bakery we stopped at to warm up on our way back through China Town, we headed to IKEA.  The kids had a great time in the play area, the dads had a great time drinking coffee on the benches outside the play area and the mo's went shopping.  Have to admit, this was by far the best stop of the day and rounded off our trip to Montreal. 

Progress

 

There are a few items that I have waited for a long time to get for the back yard.  They are essential items to my backyard perfection.  One of them is my colorful Adirondack chairs that we secured from my father this past summer.  The other is a fire pit.  I am happy to say one of these made its way in to the back yard this past Thursday and we have been enjoying it all weekend! I am slowly working my way to the perfect backyard..... 

Little Man loves the fire pit also.

I mean REALLY LOVES the fire pit.

Farmers Market: Who is Really Running the Show

I realized today the farmers market is really not about me and my culinary adventures; it is about the little monkey that has made friends with all the vendors.  Our two rules are that we: 1. try something new and 2. design dinner around our purchases.  Tonight, Icelandic lamb, Italian herb bread from slow fire bakery and ice cream with granola on top.  All new items and fulfilled our rules.  Once we have fulfilled the rules, we are then left to spend the remaining money freely.  I realized today that this part is not based upon mine and Andy's desires, but Little Man's.  How did I come to this conclusion?..... the Samosa Man, Nut Butter Lady and Elderberry Ginger Hot Cider Lady all know who he is and what he wants.  Some of them even call him by name.  So there you have it, culinary explorations dictated by the little monkey.  Thankfully he has good taste. 

 

Sledding

Life is good!

Big Kid

What does it take to make a four year old happy?  Big kid skis with poles.  He is done with the training skis and mommy is no longer allowed to help him get off the ground(or attempt to teach him how to ski).  He's a man on a mission. Thankfully, he did not notice that the place we went skiing lights up the trails on the other side of the road when it gets dark, or we would still be cross-country skiing.  I did have to promise that when he gets a little better will will go skiing at night on the other side of the road.  He came home happy and slept extremely well.   Maybe we should do this more than once a week? 

My Child Is Strange

Most children want to go outside and play in the snow; mine wants to go out and shovel.  He shovels tunnels and random paths in the snow. I should be happy his shoveling habit will come in handy some day, but for now it is just strange. 

Winter Farmer's Market: Try It, You'll Like It

This week, Andy learned an important lesson; sometimes the things you don't like in one form taste great made another way.  Hmmmmm, maybe there is still hope for the brussel sprouts?  Anyway, we did our typical trip to the Samosa Man and then sat down to eat, while listening to the band of the week (the upright bass player was amazing, she was playing the kazoo and the bass at the same time).  While we were sitting there, Little Man kept asking for the drink I had last time.  The response of course was, if we have money left over at the end we will go and get a drink for you.  The last time we went one of the syrup vendors was selling hot cider with ginger; it was really good.  This week in place of the ginger syrup they had elderberry ginger syrup.  Andy of course turned up his nose at this and while I was buying our baked goods snuck a sip of mine.  By the time I joined back up with the boys, Andy immediately told me that I needed to go buy some of the syrup and later in the day picked up cider at the grocery store.  Sometimes my taste buds are better than his, he is just not willing to admit it yet.

(Sorry for the delay we were having some picture issues with the blog)

First Run

At 17 degrees outside, I managed to rouse my running partner out of bed, trek into Burlington and run a 5K. While I will admit, last night as we sat sipping wine and telling stories, there was a part of me that thought for sure we would both bail, I am glad we did not for a variety of reasons.  First of all, just spending the first day of the year with other runners who are out having a great time is an amazing thing.  Secondly, even with an injury I managed to finish, with a time I was happy with.  Then of course there is the big one; I actually won a prize in the raffle this year (two lift tickets to one of the local ski areas)!.  Top all that off with a dip in the hot tub at my friend's house and it makes for a wonderful day. 

 

As for my running goal for 2012:  I did not manage to run a race all 12 months out of the year; I only managed to race 9 out of 12 months.  However, in 90% of the races I did run, my times were faster, I ran more races and one of the races I would have never thought I could possibly run had you asked me a year ago (Race to the Top of Vermont). So, no I did not meet my actual goal, but I exceeded so many other running goals for the year.  Here's to 2013!