Wheaton gets in it's last licks but I'm still standing!

Yahoo!  here is the last payment envelope for Wheaton College forever!!!!!!.  What else would a 59 and one half year old guy do early Sunday morning but wake up and pay bills?  This one was a welcome bill to pay.  Sorry it is sideways but thats just the way it is and I don't want to fix it.

A Tobogganing We Go

The kids wait eagerly for their first ride on the toboggan

While it's getting warm enough to go to the park in warmer climes, we are celebrating no longer being in a deep freeze.  In fact, it was one of the first times this winter that snow, temperature, and daylight have made an evening outing to the sledding hill a reality.

The kids were intrigued to try out the toboggan we got from Grandpa Mike last year.  To be honest, I was looking forward to it just as much (maybe more).  I put a coat of wax on the bottom before we left just in case it decided to stick in the soft snow.

Not only was it our first time sledding this year (in March!), and our first time to use the toboggan, but it was also Philip's first time sledding ever.  We loaded everyone up and headed to our nearest hill in downtown Hancock - the front lawn of the old middle school.  The hill is great because it's big enough for sledding, but not too big for the kids - and it's got a bit of a jump halfway down.

Sitting at the bottom of the sledding hill.  From the top (next to the building) we made it to the snowbank shown here and almost over it with the toboggan.

We were pleased to find the toboggan fast and fun.  Peter and I went down together several times and I went down with various combinations of three or four of the others (including Philip).  Rachel and I even got to enjoy a ride by ourselves. I don't think I had ever ridden a toboggan and was surprised at how flexible it was, yet it tracked well and was much more comfortable than the plastic sleds.  We got air on the jump more than once and everyone decided it was the best of the sleds.

As we returned home Peter echoed the sentiment of all the kids when he asked "When can we ride the toboggan again?  Can we do it now?"

"Honey, do you want to go to the park?"

The temperature just climbed into the lower 50s today and the sun was out. Amber asked Honey if she wanted to go to the park. A visual recollection:

Staying Warm

"It's not that cold out there if you wear the right winter gear - you've just got to be prepared"    - Philip

Dig this

For the discriminating Barnhart child, the DOS game Digger provided hours upon hours of entertainment back in the good ol' days of CGA. And the game's soundtrack was burned into my memory . . . I mean, that discriminating child's memory. So imagine my surprise when I learned that this song was not just the soundtrack to Digger, but actually a song called "Popcorn" by a band named Hot Butter.

Does it get any better than that? Well, it does if you want to play Digger online. Enjoy the decline of your productivity.

For the Non-Facebookers...

We have finally escaped from under Dad's oppressive thumb...errr...I mean...it is with great heaviness in our hearts that we announce that our days of living with Dad are over. Here's our new house in pictures!

Breakfast nook. Does this mean I can only eat breakfast here?

I think this stove can probably cook better than I can

The view from our front door

Front porch. Anyone have some porch furniture they're looking to get rid of? : )

Upstairs living room. Eventually the piano will go in the far corner where the floor lamp is

Staying true to both family traditions, we have already made several fires since moving in

Our bedroom

Office/Guest bedroom

The cats made us buy this house because of this bathroom. They claimed they're tired of cleaning themselves and demanded a jacuzzi tub to get the job done

So much room for activities! 

Gas fireplace in the basement

Pool anyone?

Lots o' storage and workspace

Don't Try This At Home

 This is how you look after shoveling/snowblowing snow for about 5-6 hours. Snow and ice literally froze to the hairy stubble on my face. Crazy stuff.

Throwback Tuesday

Remember those years before everyone had families and responsibilities and we posted on the blog UP TO 100+ TIMES PER YEAR? Those were good days. I strongly recommend reflecting on the nostalgia of days past, from which to draw inspiration for yourselves to start being interesting and writing posts again! What's scary is that I'm now the same age as David when he originally created this family blog back in 2006, and James is even OLDER than I was. Chew on that for awhile. In the meantime, enjoy this great post I stumbled across in my perusings:

http://barnhartcentral.blogspot.com/2007/06/grand-end-of-dynasty.html?m=0

The Boy Likes Chocolate

I think the photo speaks for itself.  In case you couldn't recognize him in disguise, this is Philip enjoying Rachel's birthday cake last October.  I think he was looking for more.

Wheaton College Finals Week 2014!

This is what I've done today to avoid studying. 

Westward: A Journey through Photos

Most of you know by now that I'm in Seattle. If that's news to you, then I apologize for having been sorely out of communication for the last several months.

I drove west from Minneapolis over three days, and took many (many) photos along the way. Fortunately, for you, I've edited the batch down to a representative sample. So grab a mug of coffee or hot chocolate or spiced cider (or a boring glass of water, if you're Dad), and travel west with me.

The wide open sky of North Dakota. This is just west of Fargo, and what most of the rest of the day's drive looked like.

The farmland of North Dakota.

The landscape started to get at little more interesting as I neared the border with Montana. These hills are part of Theodore Roosevelt National Park. By the way, the fenceposts are slanted because of the way my cameraphone shutter works; they're actually quite vertical.

More hills and grasslands in western North Dakota.

I'm in eastern Montana now, and starting to see a little more change in the landscape.

More hills in the Great Plains.

At last some mountains! I believe these are the Bitterroots, which is part of the Rocky Mountain Range. At any rate, I got to look at them for a long time.

Downtown Belgrade, Montana, where I found a nice steak and baked potato and got to watch a little baseball.

The next morning, from my hotel in Bozeman, I got to see a sunrise over the mountains.

Lots of scenery like this in western Montana. Miles and miles and miles...

And this...

And this... (Right about now you're probably thinking I could have done a better job editing down those photos.)

This might be in Idaho. Or western Montana. Idaho was the briefest part of my trip, so I might not remember this correctly.

But this, at last, is Washington. This is eastern Washington, just beyond Spokane. This area is known as the Palouse, and it's where a lot of wheat is grown. It's hard to tell from this picture, but the hills are soft and rolling, and it's lovely country. I hear it's amazing in the springtime when everything is green. The clouds are pretty nice too.

Coming down to the Columbia River in central Washington.

Some rain as I drive through the Cascade Mountains. I hear they have a bit of that out here.

My first glimpse of Seattle (off to the right on the horizon). It seemed a little auspicious that it was sunny for my arrival.

And a little closer shot of downtown Seattle.

Kevin and I went for a "Welcome to Seattle" dinner at a pizza place near my apartment.

And speaking of the apartment, here's what it looks like. This is the dining room, looking toward the living room.

The living room.

The bedroom.

And the kitchen.

This is Lake Union, which is about a ten-minute walk from my apartment. There are lots of sailboats on this lake, and floating houses, and it's a great spot to sit and soak up the sun when it's out. Do yourself a favor and search for images of "floating houses Seattle" in Google. I'd never seen anything quite like them before.

These intrepid explorers are standing at the top of Hurricane Ridge after an arduous climb up the Olympic Mountains. Some will say that the car did most of the work, but they had to walk from the parking lot to the grass, where this photo was taken. That was plenty difficult.

Here's downtown Seattle from the ferry. When David was out here, we took the ferry out to the Olympic peninsula, and then returned by ferry back to Seattle.

This picture is pretty blurry, but it's taken from a footbridge just behind my apartment. In the distance, which is south, is downtown Seattle. I cross this footbridge a couple times each week, as it's the quickest way to get to my neighborhood grocery stores, restaurants, coffee shops, and that scenic view of Lake Union I included above.