Fri-Fri [A Week in iPhone Snapshots]

Friday night we threw a ‘Mocktail Party’ for Sayre students to celebrate the Last Day of Classes. I ordered a ton of good food from LU Catering, and over 65 students showed up to eat it all up. The students love playing with the bambinos’ toys — the engineering students, especially, love constructing crazy marble runs!

My dad visited Saturday-Sunday. His work has him in Philadelphia regularly, which has been so nice for us because it means we see him a lot more often these days! I love when my dad visits by himself… I feel like we get him all to ourselves, and I love that. We went to a Lehigh basketball game Saturday afternoon, got a babysitter for Saturday night so that Braydon and I could take him out to dinner, and then he took us out to brunch on Sunday morning. Meera can’t get enough of MorFar throwing her up in the air.

Christmas decorating happened.

Owen and Meera (our chocolate lovers) are loving sneaking treats from Santa’s bag (I swear, they don’t think I know they sneak these, but who do they think keeps filling it back up???). Dash is loving the Christmas tree (I swear, he thinks this is a tree full of dog toys standing there just for his enjoyment). 2013 = Our First Christmas With Dash.

December 8, 2013 = First Snow of the Season & Dash’s First Time Ever Experiencing Snow (related: Dash loves snow).

Also related: Due to the weather system that that first snow got started, we then proceeded to have a week of 2 school delays & 1 snow day. Right at one of the craziest times of the year for our family (i.e. prep-for-Christmas-final-exams-end-of-year-work-and-business-wrap-up).

There was Monopoly.

There was Go Fish.

There was eggnog and iPods.

There were airplanes (these toy planes are the one toy that K & O just never tire of).

There were many, many, many baths with princesses (for Meera taking a bath is a play activity).

The bambinos rarely get to eat at their favorite campus dining hall — because it is only open for lunch on weekdays. But a snow day was a chance to have lunch there. Left: lunch at the Asa Packer Dining Room (faculty and staff dining hall). Right: Meera makes snowballs waiting for the bus to give us a ride back up the hill to Sayre.

Sledding with students…

…Always seems to turn into tickle tackle with students.

Papi had a dinner event to attend on Wednesday night. So, Wednesday night was Chinese take-out and a Christmas movie (related: my new favorite Christmas movie = A Dennis the Menace Christmas; we loved it!)

My Thursday morning walk in the woods with Dash.

Friday Treat! (On Fridays, after I pick up the kids from the school bus, I take them out for a treat — Meera always chooses the frozen yogurt place; Kyle and Owen usually choose Starbucks.)

Friday Treat! (The bambinos had a babysitter — yes, that is two weekends in a row! Kathryn, our beloved babysitter from last year is back from her fall semester in Argentina for Study Abroad!) Braydon and I had a chips & salsa & margaritas date night — that’s pretty much one of our favorite treats in the whole entire world — and a good way to end a week.

Last year our awesome maintenance guy, Kerry, put up lights outside Sayre Lodge. This year Meera remembered. She kept wondering when he’d put those lights up. She saw him the other day and asked him about it. He was just so happy that someone had actually noticed and had cared enough about those lights to remember them — let alone ask him to put them up. And the very next morning…. those lights were twinkling on Sayre Lodge.

One week. Snapshots are just that — snapshots. They capture very little. But it is a peek into a week.