Touring and a Game

We toured Calvin's new gym facilities this afternoon. They were in the midst of building when we moved here, so we've watched the progression over the last several months. Once they started doing much of the indoor work, though, we kind of lost track of what they were doing. It was awesome to see the inside today.
Anna favorite place was the Venema Aquatic Center. She wanted to go swimming!
This climbing wall was in the lobby area.
We checked out the Van Noord Arena before the game started.
We watched Calvin's girls' varsity team play Hope. It was an exciting game, but in the end Hope beat Calvin (68-65).

See that little figure in the maroon shirt below and a little to the left of the 214? That's Anna. Toward the end of the game, she was ready to go and started to wander. We were watching her very closely and were ready to bolt after her if necessary; but were curious to see how far she would go by herself. She didn't stay there too long. She started to head back and then detoured out the door, so I had to go after her and bring her back in. It was pretty cool to be there for the Open House tours and see our first Calvin game since we moved here. Maybe Anna and I will have to watch a few activities or practices there once the weather warms up and we're looking for something to do.

Cold Knight Club

This evening before we headed out to splurge on a wonderfully nice dinner at Pietro's, we stopped at the seminary. The college was doing their annual Cold Knight Club polar bear jump into the sem pond. It was probably around 15 degrees (but felt colder) and tons of college kids (and at least one seminarian--not Matt--and at least one Riponite) jumped into a hole they cut out of the ice in the sem pond. It was nuts! We couldn't believe how many people stood in line to jump into that icy (and dirty) water. We stayed for just a little while before it got too cold for Anna and we left. It certainly was a memorable sight!

Ice Skating

Our Soul Care/Care Kids group had a field trip today. We headed to the Patterson Ice Center for some ice skating. They allowed us to take strollers and sleds for the little ones who didn't want to wear skates. They also had these little metal frames for the little skaters to use. Surprisingly, Anna wanted to wear skates and she did pretty well.
Here's Matt with Anna and a friend we took along with us.
Anna did pretty well on her own...
... but enjoyed getting some help from Papi as well.
We were really quite impressed with how well she was able to skate.
Later on, I think she was getting a little sore and cold, so she got a ride on the sled, too. Matt did really well after not having skated for a number on years. I, on the other hand, put skates on, too, but was quite wobbly! We had a lot of fun!

Happy Valentine's Day

Happy Valentine's Day! We had a nice day today. We began celebrating the day after Anna woke up. (Matt, of course, was up at the crack of dawn and even I got up early this morning. My sister Sue was in town for a conference and stayed overnight. So, we chatted a little before she left this morning. Anna got up around 9:15!) We had a fun breakfast of pink heart pancakes and strawberries. Then we celebrated with a homemade cards and a few treasures. We ran some errands, then went out for lunch. Matt had a paper to work on; Anna and I just hung out most of the afternoon. It's been a LOVE-ly day!

Another Day of Sunshine

Today was gorgeously sunny, warm, and wonderful. Anna and I spent the majority of the afternoon outdoors. Here are some photos of our time in the sun.

A Little Taste of Spring

Today was a beautiful day! It was sunny and in the 40's, so we headed outside for awhile this afternoon. (Don't worry. We know this little taste of spring is going to turn back to winter by the end of the week when we're supposed to get more snow. For now, we'll take it and enjoy it!) We took a walk to Calvin's campus to see the new gym building. Then Anna really wanted to ride her tricycle. She actually did a really good job pedaling (at least down the driveway. Our driveway is a little sloped, so she had trouble getting back up).
Then Matt got out the sled and made a little luge run on the little pile of snow at the end of our driveway.
Anna loved it!
Then she decided to try a biathlon combining the two sports! She got a little frustrated when her tricycle wouldn't really go anywhere once she had it in the snow.
Papi to the rescue!
Other news--Anna is now going to Children's Worship. I had to teach this month, so I figured this would be a good time for her to go, too. It's been a new experience for both of us. Matt is almost finished with this quarter. Exams are at the end of the month. He got his license to exhort last Friday and already has two preaching assignments lined up for March. He'll be doing his first one in New Era (about 1 hr north of here) and on March 29 will preach at Second Fremont CRC--yeah, Matt got an email from Pastor Case about 7 minutes after he got his license asking if he was available to preach yet! Matt is very excited! Hopefully soon we'll hear something about the summer internship. After colds and fevers going around (including Anna), I'm back to babysitting this week. Anna and I are also very excited that Soul Care and Care Kids are starting up again this week. (Those are our groups for seminary spouses/kids.)

Just Stuff

Well, I know it's been awhile. With the weather being very cold and being in the midst of potty training (which is going remarkably well), we haven't really been out much. Here's some of the regular stuff we do--
Anna and I babysit on Mondays, Tuesday mornings and Friday mornings. Here's one of our charges at our house. He's a fun little bundle of energy!
We've had a lot of snow this winter and it has been very COLD! One nice thing about the low temps is that we see sunshine--we LOVE that!
We have a few bird feeders right outside our living room window. Often we see the squirrels getting on them more than the birds.
Matt made cinnamon rolls for breakfast this morning. We shared them with these 2 men who stayed at our house a few nights. They were in town to attend the Worship Symposium. It was a real blessing for us to host them.
Anna is doing pretty well in her big-girl bed. This is a rare shot of her actually sleeping in her bed at naptime. Since she's been in her big bed, some things have changed. She doesn't stay in bed long enough to fall asleep at nap times most days. She also gets up often after we put her to bed at night. Last night, she came out to the living room after we'd put her to bed and said, "My slinky isn't tired." She was carrying her slinky and put it on the couch. We thought that was a pretty creative excuse for getting out of bed and then escorted her back to her room. Another thing that's new is that many nights now she doesn't want to wear her pajamas. She prefers to sleep in her clothes. That's fine with us except when she falls alseep with just a shirt on and then kicks off the covers, gets cold, and cries in the middle of the night.
We are experiencing quite a few meltdowns in the late afternoons--see above notes about naptime (or lack thereof)! I'm hoping some sort of adjustment takes place soon--back to naps or really not needing them!
Matt did quite a bit of baking this weekend. We had homemade calzones for supper tonight. They were very delicious. Anna helped him with the dough. She had a little ball of dough and rolled it out...again and again...until she decided she really wanted to make something. She chose to do the letters of her name and a gingerbread girl. She thought they were pretty tasty.
So, that's what we've been up to lately. Matt's been busy plugging away at his classwork and is enjoying his new job at church. He's got exams at the end of February and then maybe we can take a little time off together. I've been busy babysitting, organizing Christmas and craft things (yeah, finally getting things organized!), and taking my turn teaching Children's Worship this month. We're just busy doing our regular stuff!