Family – Page 43 – M. Sullivan Photography

January 28, 2012 M. Sullivan Photography Landscapes, Photos, Sledding

Week In Review

Another week has passed. We spent the last two Fridays at Bulldog hockey games. Last week’s game we enjoyed with Mike’s parents with a nice dinner at Valentini’s prior to the game. We had gymnastics class for Sophia and basketball practices for Sebastian during the week. Sebastian had his weekly Saturday morning basketball game. No ski races last week, but the kids are planning to race tomorrow at Chester Bowl. The mornings were cloudy and gray most of the week as seen below.

The gray start to the week was followed by a sunny Friday morning with snow showers in the afternoon and a beautiful sunset.

I have a couple of photos I haven’t posted yet of the kids getting geared up for the ski races two weeks ago. They put on everything except their skis before getting into the car – even their helmets.

I’m sure they received a few looks while they were on the way to the ski hill by other vehicles on the road. I guess the extra head protection would come in handy in case of a fender bender.

Sophia had a playdate with a friend today. They spent some time sliding on the fresh snow, making snow cones (with “white” snow” from the backyard), playing with play dough and mastering Super Mario Brothers on the Wii.

We still hope to get out to Spirit Mountain and Mont Du Lac to ski before winter is over. We keep waiting for a big snow storm to drop some nice powder, but it hasn’t happened yet. This last small storm was enough to cover the bare grass in our yard. Unless we get a major snow event, the “bobsled” course in our backyard will not happen this year. 😦

January 11, 2012January 11, 2012 M. Sullivan Photography Daphne, Gymnastics, Landscapes, Photos, Weather

An End To “Spring”, CleanWare, Basketball & An Angry Bird

With highs near 50 yesterday, today’s weather was a bit of a shock to us all. I think we were hoping to ease back into winter slowly, but instead we have snow, wind gusts over 30 mph and wind chills in the negative digits. Hard to believe I took Daphne out for a walk last night in capri length athletic pants and a light jacket. The beautiful sunrises also came to an end this morning when the cloudy skies took over. I did catch these photos before work yesterday morning. It was calm on Lake Superior which led to some great reflections on the water.

The kids have been busy with a number of things in recent weeks including Sebastian’s invention project. He was given materials before Christmas break to document and create an invention to display at his school. He had to keep track of his time, the process, trial and error, cost along with documenting the problem and solution that his invention was designed for. Sebastian’s idea was to create a product that could keep meal time tidier. Silverware creates a mess if you lay it on the table. If you put it on your plate, it can slide off and make messes on the table, floor or your clothes. Sebastian designed two utensil holders that clip onto either side of your plate to hold your messy silverware. He used small Tupperware containers, magnets and clips and came up with a very cool product. He displayed his “CleanWare” invention and a poster board at school yesterday. Here’s a snapshot of his display.

When he wasn’t busy with his invention, Sebastian has been busy with basketball. He plays for an area youth rec basketball league. His division is made up of 5th and 6th graders, although his team has only 5th graders. The height advantage of the other teams makes it a bit challenging – as shown in the picture below.

He has a great coach and an awesome group of kids on his team. It’s been fun to see the progress they have made since the season began in the fall.

Sophia finished up her last swimming lesson before Christmas and has now jumped into gymnastics. She would have liked to do both gymnastics and swimming, but it would’ve been a bit crazy to have two sports and religion class during the week along with homework. I don’t have any pictures to share of her gymnastics class, but did snap a few pictures of her new hat last night. We found the hat during a quick trip to Walgreen’s during the holiday break. A big display of several of these plush hats were positioned right inside the door. Of course once Sophia had it on her head, it was hard to say no. I did actually say no..at first. By the end of our mini shopping spree, Sebastian had found a cool sock monkey and Sophia had an adorable Angry Bird hat.

January 4, 2012January 4, 2012 M. Sullivan Photography Family, Photos, Skiing

A New Year, Another Sunrise

I’ve been MIA – busy with the holidays, cleaning up from the holidays, an unexpected trip to the northern-most part of the state, Sebastian’s invention project, the kids’ ski races, getting back to work and the kids going back to school, along with a side project/job that I’ve taken on for a friend. Although our holiday break took some unexpected turns, we did have quality time with both sets of parents (grandparents) and a short visit with the Sullivan cousins. We found time to see a movie, play some games, enjoy our new Christmas gifts and spend time together as a family. Now that we are back into the craziness of work and school, it was nice to stop and enjoy a couple of beautiful sunrises this week. I neglected to bring my camera with me on my drive to work both yesterday and today, but borrowed my company’s point-and-shoot to capture these images this morning.

Here’s a family photo taken with Sophia’s new camera at our traditional New Year’s Eve dinner destination – Famous Dave’s. We spent some additional time next door at Adventure Zone playing games, winning tickets and exchanging tickets for two stuffed monkeys, two tops and a few other plastic trinkets. Fun was had by the kids and the parents. 🙂

The kids spent the earlier part of their New Year’s Eve at Chester Bowl participating in the ski races. Mike and I were busy trying to stay warm at the bottom of the hill, but eagerly cheering on both of them. Sophia had two excellent runs that put her in the middle of nearly 20 kids in her age category. Sebastian outdid himself by placing second in his category. Here are the YouTube clips of their races.