Unlike the lower 48, it is way too warm here. We are approaching week 2 of higher than 32 degree temperatures along with a few days of precipitation sprinkled in. We're losing all of our snow, the roads are glazed doughnuts early in the morning, and the cross country trails are worthless. It's just odd and annoying. The winter is nowhere near over, so let's please just plow straight on through and enjoy the sledding hills and ski trails without any melting detours.

The reprieve of cold and snow means the grounds crew at the townhouse stopped by to blade the icy lot and truck away the snow mounds occupying the remote corners. Henry did not know what was going on, but he knows all too well the grumble of trucks and beeping of transmissions in reverse, so he quickly alerted Mommy that they needed to gear up and head outside. I'm told he silently devoured the spectacle of the front end loader biting off hunks of rock like snow and dropping it into the dump truck. Sometimes all your dreams of trucks and heavy machinery realize themselves right in your backyard.

Twenty minutes later in the warmth of the living room Becky wisely produced some cotton balls and Henry was soon off to the races moving the snow into his dump trucks.




Our hike to the bog yesterday was a comfortable one at 40 degrees. Henry found a small pocket of sticks under a downed tree that he quickly dubbed a "secret cave." Perhaps those Encyclopedia Brown books are sinking in.

He also loved examining the sewer cap, but I advised him to not get too close, lest the CHUDS get him.



In the end the best part of the hike was completely unexpected and unplanned, and occupied 20 minutes of our time -- walking all over crunchy ice.

With the holidays passing and the bathroom work finished, it's been much easier to enjoy spending time around town with Henry. Whether it be sledding, hiking in Baxter Bog, walking down to the lake, or taking in an Aces hockey game, there is plenty to do in our dark winter up here.

Henry spent plenty of time covering his ears at the hockey game (excessive cowbells are the local tradition), but he never fussed, which is all you need to know. The zamboni knocked him into a wordless state, which is tough to do these days. Top it off with a four wheeler tooling around the ice during an intermission promotion, and it's easy to understand how Henry really loved the hockey game.

We recently picked up some skates and will be giving those a spin this weekend. We know enough about branding and advertising to market the impending experience as "hockey", not "ice skating." He's excited.



We toured a preschool last week and liked all of what we saw. He'll be the perfect age for it in the fall of 2014, so we only need to focus on a single hitch -- potty training. He enjoyed the visit, wants to go back to the school, and keenly remembers a wooden train being played with in one of the rooms we peered in. It all adds up to a guy that is showing great progress in trying the potty so he can go to school. We're getting better at it and trying harder everyday.




At St Elizabeth's gym, after months and months of visits, Henry finally noticed the flood lights.

After a few weekends of scraping tiles, belt sander dust, and drop cloths everywhere, the bathroom is finished.