Winter Vacation

I am not sure exactly why we get a week off of school in February, but I must say we sure enjoyed the break! The weather was beautiful and awful, freezing and "warm" for February. We kicked it off with a ward activity at Letchworth State Park where we went sledding and built snowmen (and dog!). We watched TV, visited the Corning Museum of Glass, went to an indoor pool with a slide and "speedy" river, decorated cakes with friends, and went ice skating. A really fun week! There are LOTS of pictures, so feel free to scroll quickly. I'm not going to include many captions-- unless there's something specific I want to say. Enjoy reliving our week!

Feb 15: Letchworth State Park

I couldn't convince Megan to try tubing down the hill. I was so thankful Veronica Morphy was able to get her out of the club house and down the slope. They both had so much fun!

Travis took Nica down the "bunny hill". The little boy is the son of a friend of mine. He was not as adventurous as some of the other kids.

Miranda, after going down the most difficult hill, decided she wanted to try the hill Nica was on. I think she had fun, but definitely liked the bigger hill more.

Nica is almost as big as the tube!

Veronica Morphy flying down the fav hill- fast and bumpy!

Half the Wildy Fam

Megan was sailing down the hill!

See that hair?

Miranda loved the fast hill, too!

She didn't even mind the tumbles.

Travis needed two of these tubes to fit all his length.

One of my primary girls!

This is the snowman Megan and I carved out of the parking lot snow. There's also a little dog- you can see his red nose and his green (celery) eyes.

Harry Potter Snowman

The older girls assembled a snowfort on the pile of parking lot snow.

Very intent face, isn't it?

One of Nica's classmates and friends from church.

You never could tell when the crust of snow would give way and you'd sink to your knees!

Megan and I with our snowman! (and snowdog)

Some friends made a Snowface

Snowshoeing! I really want to try this!

Another of Nica's friends, he's constantly moving (and so difficult to get a picture of)

Snowbaby! This one won first place in the contest.

We won second place in the contest! Our reward was perfect: a box of lots of different kinds of chocolate!

Snow train- the girls hooked arms over ankles and went really fast down the hill.

the "finished" snowfort

Snowtunnel

After our adventures in snow, we drove around the loop to see the frozen falls. There are three of them (lower, middle and upper). Here we were looking at the middle and upper falls.

Nica remembered coming here with Grandma Winkie, Nana and Grandma. She's pointed at the upper falls.

The sunlight hit the mist from the waterfall just right. It was really beautiful.

Frozen upper falls.

Megan pointed out this face. It's in the shot above- can you find it?

Nica made both Megan and me nervous with how she kept scooting back on this snow covered, narrow and short rock wall. I finally asked her (dragged her!) to move away from it.

Soooo beautiful.

This is the middle falls up close. I couldn't get any closer because the walking trails were all under 3 feet of snow and "closed".

Feb 18 Corning Glass Museum

All the kids! Garret, Megan, Miranda, Veronica (Nica), Zoë, and Mya.

Miranda had a hard time deciding between the red rose and the blue narcissus at her elbow. She decided on the blue in the end.

Nica picked the blue daffodil.

Sweet smile and green eyes.

We were stretched along a bench, waiting for the (awesome!) glass blowing demonstration. We wish that one of us could've won the drawing for the bowl, but it went to another person.

Mya, Zoë, Nica, Veronica Morphy, Garrett, Megan and Miranda (who was hiding cuz she did NOT want her picture taken)

Some HOT bodies! Garrett, Mya and Zoë

There were optional classes (ranging $20-$30 each) that you could take. Veronica signed up for a wind chime that you could decorate with glass pieces. She's assembling her's here.

Garrett did 'flamework" where you melt sticks of glass together to create a pendant.

Mya chose glass blowing. You get to pick the colors and something of the shape and blow as the staff turns the tube and shapes the bulb.

Mya's finished statue- it's still about 1000-degrees hot! Has to cool overnight (slowly) so it doesn't crack. The colors are supposed to be different when it cools.

Nica was so excited- "I'm on Mya's back, and Mya's backpack is on my back!"

The Girls (minus the photographer)

I wish I had a better picture of this. I would have LOVED to get this for Nana and Nanunt: an entire underwater coral reef, all made from glass.

These were so cool looking, I had to take a picture of them!
I also loved seeing the statue of Chihuly glass in the entrance atrium (Zo&eujml; got a picture for Nana so I didn't get one).

We will DEFINITELY be going back to this museum. All the girls plan to save up to take a class, and everybody wants Nana to come with us (she is an especial fan of Chihuly).

Feb 19: Swimming
My camera battery was dead, so I didn't get any pictures of the girls on this trip. I'm borrowing one from my friend's Facebook page.

Bailey's, Baldwin's, Lonsberry's, and another friend of the Lonsberry's
It was certainly fun to have friends to play with! But the pool was fun by itself. Definitely a place we'll keep on our list of places to visit!

Feb 20: Cake Decorating
We had the Baldwin's come over. I baked up two cake mixes (6 butterfly cakes, 2 six-inch rounds, and 2 eight-inch rounds; half chocolate, half yellow cake), made marshmallow fondant, and 2 lbs of butter in buttercream frosting. Whew! The kids were AMAZING and did really well keeping the mess minimal, the finger-licking discreet, and turned out some really good lookin cakes!

I won't attempt to write the Hawaiian names of the Baldwin kids. I'm lucky if I don't get them messed up!

Kiki and Zoë putting the finishing touches on their cakes. They really used the fondant and had lots of fun. The others used lots of frosting (Megan and Miranda used only frosting; the others had a covering of fondant and then decorated that with frosting).

Feb 21: Ice Skating

Again, I didn't get pictures of this trip. But, this time around Nica took off on her own. I think it was because she had a friend from preschool there to chat with as she held on to the red "walker" and she wasn't so bored going in circles. She is such a social little girl! Miranda also loved skating with her buddy, Brianna (one of the college students who works at the rink during open skate). Megan got better and more confident in her abilities. Zoë met a classmate (potential new friend?) who was Nica's friend's big sister. I was able to skate as fast as my new (sharp!) skates and the softened ice would let me go. I even got a little better at skating backwards. Still need to work on turns and stops, tho'.


Feb 22: Chores and Veggin'

I worked on transcribing an interview. The girls found various activities (as I chased them away from one screen or another). My favorite was seeing them making things from glue and napkins, crayons and stickers. Megan made a puppet, Nica a snake from a napkin, Miranda flowers from the dot-markers. Zoë listened to or read books. Travis was at a Hockey game with some friends.

It's been a great stay-vacation. I am still looking forward to getting out and exploring the area more, but I'm so grateful for friends and activities, and the freedom to be able to do new things!