The Search for Miss Direction: Bobsleds and Airplanes

Mid-week already - can you believe it? And even more - almost mid-month! With February being shortened we are almost halfway through already and I can't believe it. We've been super busy around here with states, the Olympics, helping at school and Valentine's Day that I've completely lost track of what day it is at some points lately! Plus, my office (the actual one in Peoria) is going to be moving to a new location over the next few weeks and I've been busy doing what I can from here to help them out. Do you have any idea how many places an address for a law firm is? Ugh! The number of documents with letterhead alone will probably keep me busy for weeks :)

But back to life here in Farmington Hills. Day 5 of the Olympics brought Bobsled racing! I set up two side by side slopes that we raced cars down. The car that went the furthest won that 'heat'. Not anything super complicated today, but fun none the less! I've tried really hard this Olympics to come up with games that are fair for everyone - in other words something that Grant and I aren't automatically going to win unless we 'throw' it in their direction. They both did legitimately kick my butt at the ring toss last night and Noah has been dominating in general. It's fun to watch how excited they get. And they've been great about being excited no matter who wins. Anyway, check out below for pictures and today's medalists.

My house has smelled absolutely amazing all day as our Rocky Mountain Stew cooked away in the crock pot. (I made this a little differently than the recipe calls for - halved all the ingredients and threw everything except the oil and flour in the crock pot and let it cook on low all day. Added the flour about half an hour before dinner to thicken the gravy a bit.) Stew isn't much of a 'go to' in our house, but everyone here loved it. (Noah even ate it without problems in spite of the peas). The Bean also helped me this morning make Colorado Ranch Cookies for dessert. These were super interesting to make. I did follow the suggestion to 'marinate' the cranberries in the egg and almond extract. Also, I don't think that I've ever made a cookie where you blend the dry ingredients, mix together the butter and sugars, combine those and THEN add the eggs and other 'mix-ins' It was strange how they came together but everyone here loves them.

After dinner we started work on our salute to the Air Force Academy being in Colorado Springs - model airplanes! We decided to paint them tonight and then we'll assemble them tomorrow night. Not sure that these colorful planes would pass inspection at the Academy but Thing 1 and Thing 2 sure did enjoy decorating them.

Looking forward to tomorrow. Mikayla's class party for Valentine's Day is tomorrow and I get to go and help out! Plus a PTA Board meeting, our finished planes and who knows what else. At the moment though, I'm off to try my hand at making some homemade burger buns for tomorrow night. I mean, you can't really have authentic cheeseburgers without going all out, right? (More tomorrow on Colorado's tie-in to the cheeseburger!) So until then...