Winter Break Fun

Yesterday was our first day back to school! After two weeks of sleeping in until 10am {a huge perk of having older kiddos + Alaska darkness}, it was incredibly hard to wake up to our alarms! But we spent our last day of Winter Break in the most fun way possible--snow tubing & a visit to Botanical Gardens to see the Christmas lights {which are truly "winter lights" here as the displays stay up until the end of February} + ice sculptures...it was truly "snow" much fun!!

There were so many cute photo opportunities at the Botanical Gardens with the light displays & amazing ice sculptures, but it was just way too cold to pull my phone out much! Brady loved the model train in the "warming station," and they also had kick sleds for the kids to use, which was super fun for our crew! Brady's most favorite thing to do was to run ahead of us and slide on the snowy/icy path throughout the Botanical Gardens.

We are determined to soak up as much winter fun as we can over these next few months! Shelby is joining the cross country ski team at her school this quarter, and I just signed up Derek, Brady, and Hadley for snowboarding lessons next month. We just need the snow to cooperate with us now. ;)  Our first two winter in Alaska came with record setting snow accumulation, and this winter has been sparse in the snow department to say the least! Today the kids are actually home from school due to an ice day. We were thrilled to have a surprise day at home after only one day back to school, and our kids didn't miss a beat--right back to Monopoly marathons! But hopefully we'll get more snow soon!