Mommy in Portland

Lee went to Portland last weekend for a conference where she was teaching four classes.  Four!  Being so busy, she could not call me.  So I asked her to call me when she had no class.  Haha!  Get it?  I stole a great Rodney Dangerfield line.

On Friday night, Elsa had a book club and a birthday party to attend.  What a busy social butterfly.  Claire and I went to Noodles for dinner (which Elsa does not like, so the timing was good) and Culver's for custard.

Notice the scratches on Claire's nose.  Earlier in the week, she fell on the ice at school.  It looked really bad a few days ago.

Saturday morning started like any old Saturday: Elsa's tennis lesson, the gym (except today I played basketball with Elsa rather than working on my pythons) and lunch at home.

Then we went to the Winter Frolic.  We had never been to this event before.  It is at the Mequon Nature Preserve.  With the weather in the teens (balmy!) and a gentle snow, we went on a sleigh ride:

Yes, my winter hat is swag from an American Securitization Forum conference.

And, most likely for the first and last time in all of our lives, we went ice fishing:

Shockingly, no one caught anything.  They had a camera set up that the kids could dunk underwater to try to spot fish.  That was neat.  

The girls had a snowball fight with a boy Elsa knows from school.  (I actually like that kid's parents, so that was nice.)  Some snow got in Claire's ear, which apparently is the worst pain she has ever felt in her life.  Oh did she cry very, very loudly for 15 seconds and then she was fine.

Elsa made a snow sculpture of a bird:

We went to the bonfire:

The girls climbed on some rock bench:

After a quick peek inside the education center building, we went to get a free snowshoe rental.  But all the kid-sized snowshoes were already rented out, and they were closing shortly.  Elsa was disappointed.  We did a little more walking, and decided to take the tractor ride.  The ride was about 10 minutes to the 40-foot lookout tower.  We went up the tower:

On the ride back, Claire volunteered to the guide that her name was Claire, she was 4 years old, her sister's name was Elsa, and Elsa was 7 years old.  She has the gift of gab from me.  The guide spotted some deer running, and Elsa told everyone "Maybe they are being chased by a hippo."  That was really random.  She has the love of hippos from me.  (I later heard this interesting story about hippos on NPR.)

We all were pretty cold after two or three hours outside, so we had hot chocolate when we got home.

For dinner, we had pizza.  Shamefully, it was DiGiorno's.  (I had planned to make real pizza, but we stayed a lot longer at the Winter Frolic than I had planned.)  During dinner, Claire asked Elsa out of nowhere: "What if you ate God?"  Elsa's response was a matter-of-fact "That would be super bad."  I agreed.

After dinner, we watched the Olympics opening ceremony from the night before.  It was a lot of fun to see all the countries, hear Elsa's (often very odd) pronunciation of each country's name from the graphics on the TV, and tell the girls where each country was on the map (they were looking at a Tag Reader World Map).

Claire kept asking when the team from India was coming out.  I said they probably didn't have a team because of a lack of winter sports in India -- it being hot there and all.  Well, then out walked the "Independent Olympic Participants," which was the team from India, but under the Olympic flag.  Here is why, technically, there is no Indian team.

Claire's being an Indiaphile was news to me.  So I asked her why she was such a big fan of India.  She said, "I love India.  I love their music!  I wish we lived in India!!!"  (Hence the picture at the top.)  Elsa immediately responded, "Then you would have to celebrate a holiday where you put a pin in your head."  Huh?  Apparently, she learned at school this year during their "Holidays" classes that you put pins in your head for some Indian holiday.  

(By the way, it turns out that Claire's exposure to Indian music is all from the Tag Reader World Map.)

In between more professions of the love of India, Claire was dancing along with the ballet dancers during the ceremony.  The girls really enjoyed the pageantry.  I really enjoyed Claire cuddling on my lap when she wasn't dancing.

The girls' day ended with a call from Mommy.  They FaceTime'd with her, which was probably the highlight of their day.

The next day was a lot lazier for us.  Sunday school for the girls, and the gym for me.  The Wii -- we finally created a Mii character for Claire, and we updated Elsa's and Mommy's Mii characters to reflect current hairstyles.  We played "pillow cave."  I made a new recipe for dinner: peanut butter noodles with veggies.  In an odd twist, Claire loved it and Elsa hated it.

They both went to bed, excited that Mommy was coming home the next day.  I was similarly looking forward to Mommy's return!