February in Review.

Man, thank God for google photos. If you had asked me about the furious and fleeting month of February, I would have called it exhausting, work-filled (world events not really helping out with the work-life balance these days), and stressful. (Although I don't know if even Pentagon crises could reach the level of exhaustion attained by these boys after two early morning hours at a trampoline park.)

But when I scroll through my photos on a rare "down" evening, I run across snaps like these 

that remind me that life with F+F (largely thanks to a Grandma Jayne who makes a whole lot of dinners and sews character costumes) brought a whole lot of belly laughs and a fair amount of joy, too.

Apparently (according to google photos), this month we also found time for date night (Marc Cohn at the Birchmere, which was incredible) and jousting,

game night and conning little brothers into playing Polly Pocket,

and celebrations for everything from Chinese New Year's to Valentine's Day

to Mardi Gras.

Birthday parties came back with a vengeance

and we enjoyed every second.

The most important of which was, of course, the big guy's 39th. Which included, per usual, an impromptu celebration with DJ & crew, 

and also an amazing getaway to beautiful Smith Mountain Lake with the entire menagerie

for fishing and swimming,

hiking and 1980s arcade games,

Bert Kreischer and, randomly, alpacas.

We wrapped a whirlwind couple weeks with a Teacher Workday I managed to get off work, which we spent finally checking out the International Spy Museum (it was awesome and totally worth another trip, hint hint Lisa),

and eating our way through the DC Waterfront.

Who knows what March will bring? We are bracing ourselves and finding joy everywhere we can. The world is a crazy place these days. 

Even so, cheers to February, and a happy Valentine's Day/ 39 to the guy who keeps us in giant steaks and big laughs.

Oh, and also this, courtesy of Thrasher's Rum but basically also, everybody.

Snow and Road Trips.

It was 8:30 pm on a school/ work night and we were sitting at a Mellow Mushroom in Roanoke, four hours from home. "Why do I always do this to myself?" I thought, as I fished around in the back of the road trip- destroyed Subaru for pajamas so I could have the kids change in the bathroom and sleep in the car.

Two reasons. 1) We had survived COVID albeit with a lot of wrecked holiday plans, and I felt like we needed to make up for lost time. More importantly, 2) I'm a Walters. And it's, like, a birthright to squeeze every last second out of long weekends and vacations. We have all been known, at one point or another, to go straight from the airport to work. May as well pass that on to the next generation.

It was actually our second road trip since our (long overdue) recovery, after a spontaneous jaunt to Pittsburgh to (sadly) see Grandma and Grandpa off on their trip back to North Dakota, and visit the truly excellent Carnegie Science Center.

Plus hotel pool hijinks, and a brief and miserably cold blizzard snowtubing adventure.

The kids had scored two teacher workdays for a long weekend win and Seth had class, so a road trip to Birmingham for the wedding of a friend was born. Which, of course, we kicked off with a stop at the Ryans'. (And more unexpected snow!)

How much the kids love a road trip makes my Mom heart happy, and F+F were up for adventure. We discovered an awesome Augusta climbing gym, a sketchy (but warm!) northern Alabama hotel pool,

a lovely civil rights park across from the 16th Street Baptist Church,

and (having been promised warmer climes), an unwelcome Deep South cold snap.

Kat and Bill's Sunday afternoon wedding was beautiful and funny and delightfully kid friendly.

And the reason that Monday evening found us eating late night pizza many hours from home is that we spent Monday morning at- no kidding- the best aquarium I have ever been to, in Chattanooga.

It was so good I bought the photo! (A distinctly un- Walters act.)

We eventually made it home, and spent the week doing midnight laundry and scavenging for lunchbox ingredients (the unfortunate side effect of vacation-maximizing.)

And then did another un-Walters thing, and spent an entire (freezing) weekend at home enjoying the mundane. (Playing "airplane" in the sunroom and cursing at the broken water rower.)

We rounded out January with swim school shenanigans and Costco finds,

snow and more snow,

a Bison win,

and the JAG Winterfest, at which Seth put in another bid for Dad of the year (and I enjoyed my annual reminder of why ice skating with kids is the absolute worst.)

We enjoyed our snowy January, but are hoping fervently for warmer weather (and looking forward to the return of Grandma and Grandpa!) in February.