Spring Mountain

Melo and I went to Spring Mountain Ski Resort this weekend. Think bunny hill, not multi-peak ski resort. We decided to go tubing. You start by hooking your tube to a wench that pulls you to the top of the mountain. When you get to the top, you choose a lane and let her rip. You can actually get going pretty fast (maybe 25 mph?) if you get yourself into an aerodynamic position and limit contact with the snow. Anyway, here's a video I took that basically explains it all:

Melody's lesson for the children at church was on light and dark (these are 3 year olds so they keep the lessons pretty simple). We went to the library across the street from where we live to see if we could find a book on light and dark. They didn't have Goodnight Moon, a childhood classic; but they did have this book:

I would have totally gone for it. I can think of few illustrations of light vs. dark that are more memorable to me as a child than this.

Snowmageddon

Yes, snowmageddon has officially arrived in Eagleville, PA. I'm not sure who coined the term, but they certainly succeeded in creating mass hysteria in the mid-Atlantic region this weekend. My theory is that the weather stations have a racket with the retail stores where they get a cut of any snow shovels, melting salts, or other snow-related purchases. To be fair, Philadelphia did receive over two feet of snow, setting a record for 2nd highest accumulation for any snow storm ever in the area. The western suburbs received much less, probably 12" to 18". Here are some photos of our apartment complex:






We are also in the midst of purchasing plane tickets for our travels this year. Already purchased are the tickets to Dallas in April. We will be visiting my family for a week. We're biding our time on tickets to Hawaii to see if the price comes down. We're also looking at tickets prices to SLC to get Melody home a week with her family. By the way, if you have not used farecast.com, you should. It searches all flights and predicts trends in pricing. It will even recommend purchasing or waiting and give you a percent confidence that it is correct.

I will be doing a weekend winter encampment with the scouts this weekend at Valley Forge National Park. This particular encampment is the longest running encampment in the United States and is the only encampment that takes place in a National Park. I think it will also be cool to remember George Washington and the other soldiers that made it their winter home so long ago. Needless to say, these are my justifications for (potentially) freezing this weekend in (potentially) a foot of snow. Good times.