When we made the decision to move last year and stay here another 5 years (at least, Rob always reminds me), I decided that I'd better learn to love it then, gosh darn it. Bloom where you're planted and all that...you can tell I was enthusiastic. But we went to UND football games and cheered for the home team. We asked Santa for ice skates for the family (found for cheap, cheap at local thrift stores) and Haley, for one, has discovered a new passion. We persuaded my mom to visit at Thanksgiving and Rob's parents to visit in January. We stocked up on firewood and enjoyed blazing fires most nights all winter long. We went sledding and discovered a local park will lend snowshoes, cross-country skis, ice skates and hockey gear for free - add it all to the list of fun! When we sat down to make our Springtime Countdown Calendar a month ago, I thought, "Wait! We haven't made a snowman yet! Or gone sledding enough! Or taken the kids to a hockey game!" Crazy, I know.It hasn't all been fun - we had a round of flu early in the winter and again during the holidays, and then the boys have had terrible, lingering coughs this last month. We haven't been able to use our annual passes to the indoor water park
because someone is always sick. There have been days and even weeks when we could feel cabin fever setting in. I gave myself ONE day to complain about the weather back in November when it got really cold, and there have been many days when I'm stuffing the kids into their socks, boots, coats, mittens, hats, scarves, buntings and blankets that I was tempted to revert to whining and had to bite my tongue. But you know what? It seems to have paid off...this has been our best winter yet, and we're looking forward to (at least) a few more.
