St. Patrick's Day fun

For St. Patrick's Day, we headed down town for our parade with my friend Rosie!  

Here are the girls:).

Now it was POURING.  I didn't know how it would go.  I had hoped that the rain would magically disappear by parade time.  I told the kids we could just see how it goes and if we needed to leave we could.  

Hud got to bring his bike and he was ecstatic!  We decorated it a bit and hit under the neighbors tent...until they asked us to leave:(.

Ready to go!  Well at least Hud was...

He was hard core biker!

Hannah eventually perked up...after her 3rd sucker.   

Moments later, she looked this...

Notice she didn't even finish her sucker:(.

This is how we looked in the parade!  It stopped raining exactly the time when the parade started!  It turned out to be a pretty nice day!

Our actual St. Patrick's Day included Bible study and some reading:).

Happy Belated St. Patty's Day!

Skiing

One of Hudson's Christmas gifts was ski lessons.  We had brought him up last year to see what he thought and he clearly wasn't ready.  We talked it up big this winter and he was ready!

First day and he was already carrying his skis!

He even wanted to fill out his name, himself!

Pops giving him a little help with his gloves before his first lesson!

He met with his Mighty Mites group.  They played a few games to get to know one another:).

Then it was time to see what each skier knew how to do.  

Here he is getting on his skis.

First attempt

Then he was put into Grant's group with a few other first timers.

Simon Says on skis, so cute!

Edgy Wedgy time!

Ironically Pops forgot his boots on the first day so daddy and Hannah got to come visit too!

Snow angel fun!

This is Hudson's review on his first day at lunch:

He kept asking if lunch was over and if he could ski more:).

By the afternoon he had already rode the chair lift!  He went up Chair 5, the beginner chair, but I was super impressed!

The next week he was all smiles again!

There were even a few foggy and windy days.  But Hud didn't mind, he was ready to ski!  We talked about how it's cold but true skiers ski in all conditions!  He was ready!

But there were quite a few sunny days as well!  The February/March skiing was really spring skiing.

I think this was his last day, or so I thought.  He had croup pretty bad but the snow was getting scarce so Jared and I let him ski b/c he was begging to!  After this lesson, they canceled his last lesson:(.
We were bummed but had a feeling it was coming.
Then that week, they pushed snow around to open it for Saturday/Sunday.  They had three chairs open: 5, 3, & 2.  We were impressed with Mt. Spokane's dedication and commitment!


Here he is skiing with his group:).

The last two lesson days, Jared took Hud for a few runs after class.  What a thrill it is to see my boys skiing together!

This is how bare the mountain was this year:(.  Sad ski season but Hud still managed to learn!

All in all it was a fabulous season!  We were so impressed with the Mt. Spokane ski instructors!  Hudson almost had one-on-one the whole time until he started skiing!  He loved going up and begged to go back outside every day at lunch, although in all fairness an hour is a long break:).  He can't wait to ski next year!  We will definitely be doing lessons again at Mt. Spokane again next year!  I can't wait to see what he can do next season!  So proud of you buddy!

Field Trip

Hudson's elementary school's philosophy is more hands which includes more field trips than!  His January field trip was up to Mt. Spokane for some snow shoeing!  Apparently Summit owns their own set of snow shoes and this is an annual field trip.  I was excited to tag along this year!  I rode the bus up to the mountain with the kids.  Kindergartener's are too funny!

Thumbs up dude!

First, Mrs. Termath had to explain the directions and expectations.  We were with a first grade group as well.  They were our leaders:).

The hike was all uphill.  Ugh.  Not feeling super well and needing to eat more food but I couldn't, my energy was low. Plus these adorable kindergartners keep losing their snow shoes so there was a lot of picking kids up, putting on snow shoes over and over again.  I was exhausted!

Here we were with a little break.  This is one of Hud's classmates and friend's son:).

Getting Hudson to smile normal that day was a test!

Hiking up the trail!
It has been a low snow year but the trail had plenty for us to hike up.

For some reason, Hudson took it upon himself to race this friend and got VERY UPSET if he was behind him.  The trail was narrow so these two were like running up the trail.  I trudged along and kept up best I could.

Mommy and Hud pic

That smile!

Since the hike was uphill, the way back was downhill...HORAY!  Hudson was running in his snow shoes the whole day down.  Aww to have that energy again:).  

We ate lunch at the Selkirk Lodge.  I never even knew lodge was up there for cross country skiers, snow shoes, snow mobiles, it was nice and big enough for our whole group:).    The kids were very tired by the end of the lunch.  The bus ride home seemed like an eternity and they were getting restless.  Hudson still wanted Gigi and Gpa to pick him up so I headed home early.

We had plans to go out to eat for Jared's birthday as a family but I came up and found Hud doing this

So I let him sleep for a bit.  Then I woke him up so he could sleep that night and we snuggled and watched a movie.  He did end up with a mild fever.  Poor little guy.

Just another sick weekend in the Haak House this winter.

I'm so glad I've had the opportunity to take part of his friend trips this year.  It's funny to watch him in his school environment:).  He's a bit silly and such a boy.  I love it!  I had a great time connecting with other parents in the class and meeting his buddies.  So fun to be in kindergarten!