Ignite Bend

On Feb 12 Brad and I went to an event called "Ignite Bend" I am sure that if you look into your local area you will find an "Ignite" chapter/meeting going on somewhere near you.

I was intrigued by the format and thought it might me somewhat mentally stimulating and entertaining, and I was right. The room was filled with mostly yoga, java loving granolas, but it was great to be amongst a different group of people doing something different.

The premise of an Ignite gathering is:

"If you had five minutes to talk, what would you say? What if you only got 20 slides and they rotated automatically after 15 seconds? Launch a web site? Teach a hack? Talk about recent learnings, successes, failures?"

Some of the presentations were good, some were lame, but the best part of it is... if you don't like it, don't worry, it'll be over in 5 minutes and you go on to someone else.

If you go to the Ignite O'Reilly website there is a lot of info on what this event is, what it's about and has a calendar of Ignite shows near you- find your inner geek and go!!

Brad and I are trying to think of something to present... do you have any ideas?

Baroque Festival

On Feb 14th Samantha was part of the Baroque Festival at the local community college and performed with about 7 other girls her age or older. She entered the "non-competitive" division since she has never performed solo before. She knew she would be nervous and entering the "non-competitive" division allowed her to have her music with her, and gave her some experience performing on her own.

She did a great job and we are very proud of her. We taped the whole performance for your viewing/listening pleasure :-D

Skating Finale

The kids finished up their skating lessons this week. They can all make it around the rink safely now and feel a degree of confidence in their abilities (some more than others)

On Abby's last skate lesson, Frosty and Mrs. Snowberry came to visit and talk to the kiddos.

Abby got her ribbon for completing "Tikes 2" Way to go Abby!!




Elise worked very hard during practice to be able to do her crossovers to pass level 2
a
Samantha and Ethan were a bit less willing to not have both feet firmly on the ground and got "Participation" ribbons.
Ice skating can't be everyone's "thing", right??



Nice job Kiddos!

Bryans take on Bachelor

On Feb 6 Brad's brother Benji and his wife Shawna flew into town to go skiing for the weekend. So Saturday morning just Brad and I headed up to Bachelor with Benji and Shawna. It was nice to leave the kids behind and not have to worry if they were cold or hurt, or waiting for them to get down the hill. We spent awhile together going down one of the little hills and just before lunch Benji and I left Brad and Shawna to go explore some other runs the novices could go down.

It was a beautiful day: little wind, blue skies, warm temps and not bad snow. They couldn't have picked a better weekend!!

Brothers
Brad in his crash helmet :-)
After lunch Benji and I scouted out a few more runs and then took Brad and Shawna up one of the bigger chairs, and they made it down... eventually. I think their confidence is better now, and next time they'll conquer that run like it was nothing :D
It wasn't really until the end of the day when I finally kinda got my groove back. I figured a really hadn't been skiing "for myself" since I've been married because I was helping Brad learn how to ski, or my kids. It was exhilarating to be out there again and can't wait to go back!

Dr. Gingerbread

This is actually a flashback from before Christmas, but I got such a kick out of it I wanted to share. At school the kids were asked to make a gingerbreadman, and have it say something.

Here is Abby in front of the bulletin board .

Here is Abby's up close it says

"I am a Pathologist"

(we thought the spelling was pretty close for a Kindergardener)