Report cards

The kids' second term report cards came home today, and they were awesome!

Lincoln's is epic in length, with 38 categories, and he is "well-developed" in 24 of them - up from 11 last term. In all, he advanced - either from beginning to be developed to partially or partially to well - in 15 categories.

Levynn's has a more moderate 13, and she got As across the board for at least the seventh straight term. In fact, her overall average was 98.7! (We know that because CPS allows parental access to the nitty gritty online.) We're particularly pleased with her work in math; her three unit test grades were 98, 96 and 96, and she finished with a 97 average. She had a 100 in writing, which included spelling and grammar tests. Her low was a 94 in speaking; her teacher nicked our soft-spoken sweety (with a 92) for not speaking loudly enough when presenting her "How To Eat Fried Worms" project, a LEGO diorama.

Hey, nobody's perfect!

With Grandy, too!

The day after we returned from Massachusetts, Grandy arrived here for a holiday visit.

The kids helped her make a pound cake - from this recipe (long story!).

It was yummy.

Grandy got to see Levynn swim (but Lincoln didn't want to) and see both kids ice skate with Dad on their new, single blades.

Levynn showed significant improvement that very day.

And there was lots of quality time, of course!

Ringing in a new year

Thankfully, we didn't experience any flight problems like the last time we tried to go to Massachusetts during the holidays. We all were able to go, no one was very sick, and the flight was on time. Phew!

So the ladies went to Boston Ballet's "The Nutcracker" at the Opera House as planned the next afternoon.

It got Levynn dancing again.

Gift giving came that night, and, as you'll see - or already have elsewhere - this one from Uncle Dan (who now runs a ski shop!) is a real treat.

Uncle Dan and Aunt Katey, meanwhile, are planning a move to California. So we got them a California seafood cookbook.

It snowed that night, not in the forecast when we left Chicago, and dumped a nice pile for us. But we took advantage of it!

Rather than the big hills at the elementary school farther down the street, we went to Uncle Andy's mom's house across the street. She has a smaller hill in her yard, just right for trying out the snowboard.

We went there three times in two days, and Lev got the hang of this quickly. Look at her go!

Dan, Uncle Andy, Aunt Rachel and Cousin Chloe all went with us the first day.

Gram and Poppa joined us for a warm lunch after the sledding.

And Gram and the kids made cookies.

Gram joined us on the hill the next day, New Year's Eve.

We kid you not.

And here's Gram and Papa with the spread for our New Year's Eve buffet.

... which was followed by a New Year's Day brunch, Northwestern's landmark win in the Gator Bowl (woo hoo!), and our smooth flight home.

Thanks for a great visit, everyone!