other bday pics

Oops! Forgot to post these few photos we have of Zippy's bday with his pals. Now we have a month off without a birthday. But then it's a big one!

Zippidy-Do-Dah!

Zippy is EIGHT! He's had a blast of a day at the US Open in Stratton, VT. He watched in person the riders that he reads about in magazines and whose posters he puts up on his walls. He met some of them. He should be home soon and I cannot wait to hear all about it and give him his gifts and share what's left of the peanut butter pie from last night's bday celebration. (Shhhhh...it has 75g of fat per serving!)

And the female contingent of our household had a lovely lunch with good friends and then finally made it to the revamped Chinese mentor group that we've attended on and off the past few years at a semi-local prep school. The girls all had a blast! It helped for The Spark that her BFF made the 1.5 trip to be there today too. And I'm very excited that I finally lined up an hour of tutoring in Mandarin every Wednesday for The Spark. The student running the mentor group is very sweet and outgoing and bright and The Spark took to her easily, so it should be a good experience for her. She is thrilled since she's only been asking at least once a week for about two years to have Chinese lessons. Needlesstosay our area is not crawling with qualified Mandarin instructors. So finally, in her own words, she can get some "Chinese to come out of her Chinese face."

Here are the pics J sent from the US Open today:

Zippy with pro-rider (and former contestant on Dancing with the Stars) Louie Vito:

The boys with Olympic gold (2002) and bronze (2010) medalist Kelly Clark who won the women's half pipe comp today:

And with Olympic gold medalist (2006) Hannah Teter:

Checking out the top of the half pipe:

First Closing!

J just finished his very first closing as a broker! So happy and proud of him. He has another closing next week and is off to such a great start in his new endeavor. Everyone was so happy and appreciative at this closing today that he feels great about how he handled everything for them. Tonight we'll uncork the champagne that's been sitting in our fridge since Xmas to celebrate. We're also celebrating Zippy's eighth bday with his pals tonight since tomorrow, the real bday, he'll be at the US Snowboarding Open in Vermont ALL DAY. Too busy to even figure out when to open his presents.

And here are a couple of random photos from our days at the mountain over winter break last week...

Spark at the really yummy coffee shop:
The four youngers keeping busy with me while #1 trained with his coaches:

The winter of shoveling

What will I do for exercise after the snow melts?! Keeping up with shoveling away what the town plows pushes into our mailbox with every pass down our road has been as high maintenance as another child. It's right up there with training a puppy or planting grass seed in the heat of summer. Constant upkeep. I s'pose when the snow starts to melt, I can use my former shoveling time to scoop all the dog poop that's been getting buried nearly daily by fresh snowfall. That and picking out all the driveway gravel that has been plowed into our grass all winter. Neither of those build up upper arm strength quite like shoveling up and over shoulder high snowbanks though.

Toothfairy on the payroll.

Another visit from the tooth fairy!