It was the first week after Christmas break and all through the house....

....every creature was sleepy and didn't want to get up.

Sleepy Felix the cat on top of sleepy lizards in cage.

Breaks are refreshing and it's so hard to get back to normal after a break. Oh well, it was time to do just that. Back to homeschool, co-op, taekwondo (actually that didn't take much of a break), work, and on to snowboarding and skiing.

It was hard to get Tristan up for co-op on Tuesday. I'm sure he's thankful that I didn't take a picture.  We made it in time for co-op and his drama classes with not much time to spare.  I'll share a nicer picture instead.

One of Tristan's headshots from theater camp last week.

Monday and Wednesday featured Taekwondo classes as the guys work towards their 2nd degree black belt. While the guys were off punching and kicking and such I worked some more on my pantry remodel which is basically done except for figuring out if it's the way I want it.

Thursday was hit the books hard homeschooling. I'll cover our homeschool week in a separate post.

Friday was snowboard lessons at Mt. Sunapee for Hayley and Colin while I chaperoned a ski group of younger kids. Colin does not like or need lessons anymore but that is the price to pay for getting the school group rate 5 week program. He only has to take a one hour lesson and then has several hours of free snowboarding. I think Hayley still likes her lessons, she started snowboarding later than her younger brothers and is still fine tuning her skills. I did pretty well myself if I do say so for skiing blue to black trail on my first time out this year. I enjoy green trails and find them relaxing, I like the challenge of blue trails....after the first couple weeks of  a new season..... once I brush up my skills. I do not like black diamond trails whatsoever, even if they're just a small part of a more challenging blue trail, Especialy on all man made snow, with icy patches! I'm glad I didn't break myself on that first day out.

This is what it looked like from up top EXCEPT those lakes in the distance were not frozen at all, they were still shimmery

water. My camera battery had exhausted itself by the time I got here so I couldn't take my own picture.

                               I got these awesome shirts for a New Years present for all of us.

I'm not sure all of us like them as much as I do, especially those of us who are male. I found it hard to read Trevor's reaction. He being our biggest star wars fan in the family and certainly a liker of cats, I thought he might like this shirt.

Well, I didn't take a picture of his reaction so I'll post a nicer photo of Trevor in a star wars t-shirt that I know he likes

Star Wars shirt, no cats

Also on Tuesday we ordered our baby chicks which will arrive the first week of May. We ordered them from mypetchicken.com. It was hard for me a vegan and person who cares deeply about animals to decide to have chicks shipped but I was in general happy with what I read about this company, how they treat their chickens, how they ship them and how the post office will handle them. They will just be one day in the mail since I chose express shipping. Why do we even need them being a family that rarely eats eggs (and me a vegan who never, ever eats them!)? They will hopefully be a valued part of the family, will bring enjoyment just by being them, will provide those who do wish to eat eggs some that were humanely procured, they will provide humane eggs for the dogs and cats, they will provide wonderful manure/compost for our vegetable gardens, they will help us be slightly more self sustaining.  We will be able to purchase less pet food and less compost and manure from the store. Yes we'll have to buy chicken feed  but I hope to eventually have the garden feed the chickens a large portion of their diet. I'm researching. And...they'll just be fun and cute.

Some of our chickens might look like this, ahhh the cuteness!

This weekend I should have more time to update my blogs and catch up on other things. We won't be visiting my mom at the nursing home since they've had an outbreak of stomach flu. Mom is fine so far but neither she or we want to expose the kids. Even if just hubby and I visit we could bring the bug home.