Zavoral Villa!

From Jan 31-Feb 2, we took a weekend trip up to Minneapolis to enjoy the indoor Water Park of America. This fancy place is across the street (well, freeway) from the Mall of America. The hotel is attached to the water park, so once we checked in we never had to go outside. (Ok, that's not entirely true. Jeremy braved the cold a couple times to get us take-out and necessities from Walmart. That was very awesome of him.) We got a great discount on our hotel rooms since Jeremy is a Hormel employee. We also got our waterpark tickets for free, which must be a blessing for paying tithing because we should have been charged like everyone else. The hotel was so nice! We always enjoy hotels because the boys can explore and mess up everything and it doesn't matter. But we REALLY enjoyed hotel living this trip. We watched lots of TV, ate lots of snacks, giggled and cheered and jumped on beds and, best of all, blasted the heater as high as we wanted!  Jeremy and Tanner played sumo wrestlin...

On Jan 18, we had gotten some fresh snow and the weather jumped up to the 20's, so we decided to try our hand at sledding. There is good hill right in our neighborhood, just 6 houses down, around a bug curve and 5 houses up. It was so funny watching Tanner try to walk around in the snow. He had been waiting a long time for it to be warm enough to play outside. He was in heaven. Jeremy mostly stayed in the car with Dallin because there was lots of wind at the top of the hill, but he and Dallin came with us on a walk through the forest, where the wind was much calmer. We saw the river, which just looked like more ground covered in snow. Tanner's footprints next to mine. Our adventure was short, but fun! The car had an adventure of its own, too. We spent 20 minutes trying to get it unstuck in the snow. If it wasn't for the snowplow truck that came by, we would have abandoned ship and walked home. Other Zavoral News... Jeremy FINALLY got his braces off. It only took 3 orthodont...

People are saying that this winter is one of the top 10 worst ever recorded in MN history. And there is no end in sight. To survive, we basically stay home and bunker down during each wind or snow storm. It's hard avoiding cabin fever. This is what we do to survive... Take pictures with the smart phone Try every kind of moisturizer we can think of for our cold dry skin, including lubriderm, baby oil, Vaseline and coconut oil.  Play with pots and pans Wear sound muffs to stay sane from all the noise. Play ball in the house. All types of ball- both real and imaginary- in all rooms, but mostly in the basement. Eat lots of staple foods, like PB & J. Tanner consumes them by eating straight through the middle. Bake goodies. Take more pictures on the smart phone Fill the crib with stuffed animals Play in the basement.  Dallin loves the Mickey mouse Clubhouse. Make window paint bags. Invade fridge. Do art projects After being stuck at home for a stretch of 5 days, I couldn't take ...