Back to Reality....

Well, today is Sunday and that means it's back to reality and our new, temporary "normal". :(  Not gonna lie.... I don't want this Winter Break to end!!  It was SO nice for all 3 of us to be home, relaxing, spending time together, not worrying about work and travel to/from Mi..... but of course, that's not reality, is it?  Somebody has to pay the bills!  Life must get back to normal, even though I'm not a huge fan of it at this point.  Adam left this afternoon to head back to MI, and while earlier this week it looked like the weather would be fine for traveling, now it is looking horrendous.  A winter storm pummeling IL, IN, MI.... fabulous!  So prayers would be MUCH appreciated as Adam travels today.  My hope when we made this job decision was that this winter would not be too snowy--  obviously that is not going to happen!!  And we still have a lot of winter left to endure. :(

Anyway, we did enjoy some nice time the rest of our Winter Break!  Some of my instagram and phone pics of what we have been up to:

76 mph, 59 degrees, dirty dashboard

I headed up to Sioux Center for a little girl time, and it was fabulous (Disclaimer:  I made sure that the one other car on the road was nowhere near me when I snapped this pic.  Temps that warm in Dec. in Iowa need to be documented!)!!  I left Friday the 27th, and came back the next day-- a nice quick little trip to see friends!  Friday night I went out for dinner with my very best friends Stephanie and Natasha.... well, it was dinner, dessert, driving around, and coffee..... and we still didn't have enough time to get all of our chatting done. :)

Bff's!

Saturday morning Steph and I met up with one of our good friends from high school, Rebekah (FYI she's over at Our Plain Life).  To give you a bit of background, I was SUPER cool in high school (right?!?!?!?) and my closest friends and I called ourselves "The Wildflowers" after the song by Tom Petty (and yes, I have been made fun of mercilessly by my older brother about this).  Anyway, there are 4 Wildflowers, and what are the odds that we 4 California girls would marry NW Iowa boys?????  Crazy (although factor in being Dutch and CRC and maybe it's not so crazy?).  Anyway, none of us live in CA anymore, but we can sometimes overlap our visits to NW Iowa and fit in time to see each other!  This was one of those times. :)  We missed our 4th Wildflower, Kerri!  And of course, no pic. :(  But, I assure you, we are ALL still as cool as we were in high school.  Maybe even more cool, if that's even possible.

J and Daddy got to have guys time while Mommy was gone!  They did some painting (we're working on getting ready to put the house on the market in a couple months!), and also got to play outside in the nice warm weather and snow.

Good-bye blue.

A ladder on stairs.... that's safe, right?

This guy loves playing in the snow!

 Let's see.... what else have we been up to?

Snuggling and staying cozy.

Puzzles at the library.

Pretending to play in the sandbox.

"Baking" aka licking beaters

Thursday I had Professional Development at school, so J and Daddy got to have another guys day!  They went to the mall so that J could play on the germs.... I mean, playground.

Jeremiah has been keeping us laughing with the things he says!  One conversation we had the other night:

J: Hey Mommy, Daddy brought me to this world.
Me:  What?  How did that work?
J:  Well, a long time ago when I was a baby, I lived in heaven.  And Daddy came up and got me and brought me to this world.
Me:  Well, how did he come and get you?
J:  He just came in a rocket ship.

Huh.  Okay, sure.  Daddy gets all the credit!

And here's an update:  No school for me tomorrow due to the -40 to -50 degree wind chills that are expected.  So, that's our first "snow" day and one more day in May we'll be in school. :(  But I guess my wish for Winter Break not to end yet has come true!  And please say a prayer for Adam as he is traveling-- thanks!!