Family Time

Things have been rolling along in the Patterson house!  The kids are still smiling from the joy of the Christmas season.  The Christmas tree is down, the decorations and the many nativity scenes have been put away and all the pine needles swept, however I still get a few every time I sweep the floor.  I think we are going to go fake next year!

An update on my mom, she's doing much better!  I was able to visit during the Christmas holiday and spend time with her.  She was given a tracheotomy and  put on a ventilator.  With the trache and nourishment, she had improved enough to travel to Florida - Yeh!  She was put on an air ambulance and arrived safely to a health care facility near my sister's house.  She has improved so much since arriving that she is now off the ventilator, breathing and eating on her own.  She is now able to voluntarily move her foot - giving us hope that she will regain more voluntary movement.  So now, the plan is for her to move into my sister's home and begin the alternative treatment for her cancer.  Hopefully, deo volente, she will continue to progress.

The New Year has gotten off to a great start, I think!  January seems to have some long weekends built into it because of holidays and teacher's "Professional Development" days.  But what has been really great is that my husband has been home and available to hang with us. 

What a difference it makes to have him home.  There are always responsibilities of a coach and a teacher (grading, recruiting, meetings...) that fill up time, however this year there seems to be some more time available.  The dynamics in the house are so much calmer.  There is more laughing, more help, more smiles all around!  Yeh!

The weather, I always seem to talk about the weather, has been so up and down.  It really reminds me of a yo-yo.  It's unseasonably warm one day and then we are having snow flurries the next.  What is going on?  One day, I wasn't expecting it, but it started snowing outside.  I knew it wasn't going to accumulate but it was the big fluffy kind and it was so pretty!  The kids went outside and enjoyed it while it lasted.

Like I said on Facebook, if it's going to be this cold we should be having some snow.  Please say this isn't going to be the only snow we see this Winter!  Let it snow, let it snow already.

Since we had a long weekend we thought we would plan a small day trip to this city and see it's zoo.  Can you guess which city this is?

Philadelphia!  It was so cold!  However, the small crowds were definitely nice.  I made sure to layer the kids very well and then bring the necessary additional layers just in case!

The Philly zoo had a lot of neat animals that our zoo doesn't have.  My kids love animals and know so much about them that we had to visit. 

This was very exciting for Patrick!  He loves the American Alligator and we got to see it being fed.  Unfortunately, the African animals were not around for us to see.  We were looking forward to some hippos and giraffes.

We took a pretzel break between the mammal house and the gorilla house.

They had these peacocks every where, but none were showing us their pretty feathers.

We were at the zoo longer than we thought.  We were also planning on going to the Children's museum in town, but after a long, cold afternoon outside we were pretty tired.  I think we were the last family out of the zoo. 

After the zoo, we headed off to Museum of Art, not to see the art, but to have the kids run up the steps that Rocky ran up.  We got it on video.  I had to hum the Rocky song up the steps.  Even though the kids had no idea who Rocky was, it was still fun!

I never knew there was a statue of Rocky at the Museum of Art. 

The kids have smiles frozen onto their faces.  They just wanted to get back into the car and watch their movie on the way home.  We also had the Liberty Bell on the schedule, but just drove by it instead since everyone was so tired and cold.  However, we did stop by one place before we left for home - Geno's Steaks, for the best Philly Cheese steak in Philly. 

Picture not taken by me.  I was the funny tourist with a video camera.  I felt really stupid in line and everyone seemed to order as if they were regulars.  I was looking at the menu for more choices, but you could get just one size, with just onions and a choice of whiz, American or provolone.  So, ended up buying two cheese steaks with provolone.  To tell you the truth?  It wasn't all that great.  I prefer a Jerry's steak and cheese over Geno's, but nonetheless, I'm glad I tried one.  Thanks, Geno.

With the Martin Luther King holiday, we planned on doing something rather simple, but fun, locally.  Another cold day, but more windy.  We went to Gravely Point Park in Alexandria, VA - my old stomping grounds back in the day.  I don't know what I was thinking, but I didn't dress as warmly as I did going to Philly.  I didn't dress the kids that way either, but should have because it was miserably cold.  I think I can handle any weather as long as I'm dressed for it, and I wasn't prepared.

This place is great!  The planes are landing at Washington Regan Airport and we are sitting right under them as they land!  It's just amazing.  The kids loved it and were able to run around while waiting for the next plane to land or take off.  The best part of it was the Potomac River being right next to it so they could throw rocks and sticks into it.  Not to mention the beautiful view of the city.  We were also thinking of seeing the new MLK memorial, but there was a line just to see if you could park and we thought we would pass on that.  We can always come back another day and visit.

It's been a nice start to the year! 

C'mon, bring on the snow already!