A little winter fun

The past two weekends have been filled with reasons to leave our home in the cold weather, and reasons to invite people over.

In what has become a tradition over the past three years, my brother Matt helped Nathan create the 2011 edition Pinewood Derby car. His design was "Neptune's Revenge, complete with aquamarine paint and a yellow triton. It's a perfect arrangement: Matt gets to relive his Scouting days, and Nathan has access to some really cool woodworking tools (not to mention Uncle Matt's expertise!). Although his car didn't win the day, we had a great time watching all the races together.

Anya Rashi is one of those lucky kids with a birthday the week before Christmas. Last year, we experimented with celebrating after the holidays, and decided we liked that plan a lot. We took her out to lunch at one of our city's Indian restaurants, and had a party with grandparents and local aunts and uncles.

One special present was a doll bed that used to be my mother's. When I was little, the dolly bed came to our house and belonged to my sister and me. My mom refurbished and repainted it, and a had a friend make a fleece quilt. I just love having it passed down to the next generation, to see many happy years of play with Anya Rashi and her little sister. (Plus, our doll hospital is finally up to code after all those babies have been forced to sleep on the floor all this time!)

Like most of the nation, we're having our share of snow. I do think it's funny that Dallas, where our Green Bay Packers will be playing in the Superbowl, also got 5 inches! Everyone is going a little nuts here during the lead-up to the game. Yesterday, in below zero windchills, we saw a man rollerblading through town with a "Go Pack Go" sign pinned to his coat!