welcome spring....?

I found this print in a shop in Austin right before christmas this past year, and instantly bought it for Zach. He is currently cross-country skiing through the wilderness somewhere in the mountains of Alaska with a group of Tuckies as part of a spring break expedition (what? stop looking at me like that. why does everyone give me that look when I mention this trip?). So the boys and I have been flying solo for the past week or so, which has gone fine, really. I mean, I am so tired that it feels like my eyelids might fall off (tho really that's not so different from normal...). But we've got this. After solo parenting through the summer, now when Zach is gone it's like we just fall back into our familiar routine and thankfully things have gone smoothly enough. The one thing that kinda sucks is since he's in the backcountry he's out of range of communication. We don't always spend that much time on the phone when he's away, but it's nice to at least get to check in with a quick phone call or send a few texts during the day. Having him totally out of contact is kind of a bummer. 

Also, New Hampshire decided to greet the first day of spring with about 6 inches of fresh snow. This is the view that greeted us this morning:

Totes looks like spring, right?

Since Zach is gone that meant I got to dig out the walkway and car/parking spot before taking D to school (when we decided to move here Zach promised he would always do the snow shoveling). But hey at least it was warmer, just above freezing. It's really nice to go out in just a fleece instead of needing my big puffy jacket (see how positive I'm being?). To make up for the complete lack of spring-ness in this first day of spring, Q and I spent much of the afternoon curled up on the couch watching Ninjago. I've gotta admit, the show has a surprisingly compelling storyline. Once the weather finally warms up we will be spending entire days playing outdoors, so I don't feel guilt over relaxing our tv time a bit right now to get us through this last stretch of winter. We'll get there...