Finally Florida

 The morning of our flight out to Florida was the coldest of the season and probably of our entire lives in Boston. To top it off, another full-on blizzard was in the forecast. We made it out just in time before the storm and found Florida to be sunny and wonderful. The only hiccup on the trip was thanks to Spirit Airlines, who failed to deliver one of our bags on the flight down. And it wasn't because the bag didn't make it on the flight, but instead the ground crew lost it in Naples. Spirit sucks big time, and in the future we are going to pay the extra cost for a legitimate airline.

Minus 7 and a forecast of snow, then heavy snow, then blowing snow, then sunny with a high of 11. Florida here we come.
 

Logan airport is probably the only place in Boston without a snow problem. They can just push it into the harbor!

 

It is hard to believe that a 3-hour flight can bring us here. I love this country!

 

The Floridians thought the pool was cold, but not for the girls

 

 Grampa Mike and Riley

 

Nana and Tessie

 

Riley came to the girls bed one night, much to the surprise of Nana and Grampa

While the rest of the Grays were in North Carolina, Jack came by

 

Fresh citrus can't be beat

 

 We drove down to the Everglades National Park and Big Cypress National Preserve

 

 The girls earned their first Junior Ranger badges at Big Cypress

 

 We saw manatees and gators in the Big Cypress park, but with its overabundance of sunshiney goodness, Florida has amazing fauna everywhere, like this bald eagle outside Grampa's home.

 



 Back at home to the cold and snow. When the icicle touches the ground, is it a stalactite or stalagmite?

 



The yard under the south facing roof was off limits because of these hanging daggers
 

 Grandma Joan and Grampa Ed came up to help watch the kids. We took an afternoon to visit the Lowell National Historic Park

 

 The noise of the power looms was unreal

 

 Another junior ranger badge earned

 

We taught Tessie some useful phrases

 

The names Dooley and Riley challenge Tessie's rhoticity

 

Erin is still our biggest beach lover, by far

 

This is what 12 looms sounded like. Imagine if all 80 were running and you were working the usual 5 AM to 8 PM shift.

Get us outta here!

 Don't ask where the mustache came from, but Erin found it for her king costume

 

 Caroline's birthday party was at an indoor rock gym

 

 Even Tessie got geared up

but she spent most of the time bouncing on the mats



Caroline got the hang of it and could do some of the easy climbs



 This run was auto-belay assisted, but that's higher than either of her parents have ever climbed

 

 Erin showed some skillz

 

Caroline wanted a LoTR theme and we made cupcakes with the eye and edible toppers. Her choice: Legolas, the best climber of the bunch

 

 The last two weeks brought 2 storms, 4 snow days, over 3 feet of snow, and this was the forecast on Monday, with us in the 18-24 band. In the end we got about 16 inches and 1 snow day. To the town's credit they cleared it up overnight enough for only a delayed school start on Tuesday.

 

 There's 4 feet on the deck and another 3 on the roof. It's been so crazy cold that giant icicles are everywhere. Later the girls made me collect all those icicles for them as their "weapons"

 

Mom multitasked with Tessie, work, and fielding phone calls from family curious how the snow was hitting us

 

Backyard during storm #3

 

Erin and Dad dodged plows while playing in the giant snow mounds

 

In our hilly neighborhood some of the plows have chains



Snow daze

 First the indoor activities of this cold and snowy start to 2015. Friends Gary and Dana invited us to the Museum of Fine Arts and the girls were in a posing mood.

 

 They decided to hold these poses in the atrium area atop these weird shag cushions

 

 Caroline got photographed by a tourist for this one

 

Boston has 10 National Park units and we're going to see them all. Salem Maritime is right in the heart of old Salem.

 

 Their schooner wasn't open this time of year

 

 

but the visitor center let the kids dress up like merchant mariners

 

 Tessie, you are busted sneaking into the snack bag

 

 Poor Max and Clio are showing their age now - they're 13 years old

 

 Since she sleeps in so much, Erin has become Max's buddy

 

 The older girls are into beanie-boo's. Caroline bundled them up for school.

 

 Tessie is now a willing player in the big girls' games. On one of the snow days they played together for two hours!

 You are looking at what I believe is a raccoon latrine underneath a yew bush in the back corner of our yard. One day that gray furry thing appeared and upon inspection was revealed to be a squirrel stuffed animal. I guess even raccoons need their lovies.


It was cold enough for Spy Pond to freeze and the skating was excellent

 Erin made it out on the ice this year

 

 Can you spot them on Elizabeth Island?

 Erin is our snow-lover. We made our best snowman from the first and smallest snowfall

 We schlepped up to the new playground near our house

 Blizzard Juno was forecast to drop 2-3 feet and school was cancelled the night before

 In the end we got somewhere over 2 feet, closing work for one day and school for two

There were drifts 3-4 feet tall, but no problem for the snow blower

Intrepid Erin went out twice a day, every day

Wait, there's more! Less than a week after Blizzard Juno, winter storm Linus van pelted us with another 14 inches and cancelled school for another two days.

 

By the time we hit the sledding hills, they were iced over and all of the jumps were rock solid

It did cross my mind that I might be showing these videos to an ER orthopedist


This hill is famous because it has hay bales at the bottom. The girls learned to bail before the bales.


Forget the luge - riding ice chunks down a chute could be the next Olympic sport