I know I'm way behind on posts but here you go.  I'm dipping back to Halloween here folks. My apologies.  But we've been busy as you can see.  Alisa's had a busy busy fall making Phoebe's costume and followed that with sewing a new skirt and shirt Phoebe wore to her winter piano recital.

I've been brewing a lot with my good friend Mark (and enjoying the outputs), working a lot writing professional development curriculum and mentoring two young and very talented teachers at a local German Immersion Charter School.  I spend a lot of my evenings writing and it's tiring yet very fulfilling and fun.  I'm learning a lot and getting the opportunity to tap a lot of the research I would never otherwise due to time.

My neighbor Rolf and I took our girls (and his older son and another
neighbor boy) climbing over the Christmas/New Year break.  They loved it.
It was fun to dig out my old harness and consider how many years I need
to wait before getting my kids out on real rock!  

Phoebe's life is packed: swim lessons, gymnastics, piano, cross-country skiing lessons, and school.  Peter, well, he just spends his day dumping liquids from pot to pan and unpacking everything but his own toys.  He's awesome, but he's a lot of work.  We have busy days around here to say the least.

First visit from the tooth fairy happened a couple weeks ago!

Last week we visited "Ice Castles" down in Eden Prarie.
Very awesome.  There are a few across the US.  The kids had
a lot of fun for the hour we were there.

We've been trying our hand at some double/imperial
ales lately.  On the right is a Double Black IPA (Cascadian IPA)

My winter office.  It's great having the basement to work, but soon
I will be kicked out by a need to start our garden--the grow lights are
good office lighting for now