Guess Where We Went Today?

Matt and the boys had the day off for President's Day so we decided to head up to one of our favorite family places: Palomar Mountain. Its been raining off and on for the past few days and with the higher altitude and colder temperatures, Palomar Mountain was white with snow. We dusted off some cold weather gear, grabbed the sleds and headed up to the mountains. Here are a few snapshots of our day.

Seamus enjoyed throwing snowballs at everyone - including me. As I was taking pictures, he hit me dead on two times! In the following series of photographs, Matt defended me with a barrage of flying snowballs. Seamus loved it. When I showed him these pictures tonight, he insisted he was trying to catch the snowballs. HA! He didnt have a chance at catching those snowballs. They were coming too fast!

While we drove up the mountain, Finn remarked several times how the snow reminded him of his cousin, Eli. Finn recently traveled to Wisconsin to visit Eli and the rest of the Pawelek crew. While there, my sister Jennifer bought him the coat pictured in these pictures. She intended to keep the jacket in Wisconsin for her own son's future use, but Finn became very attached to it and convinced her to let him take it home. When Matt brought the jacket out this morning, Finn lit up. He loves that jacket! Matt and I think he looks like Han Solo in Empire Strikes Back.

Matt grew up in Western Pennsylvania so he knows plenty about snow fun. Over the years, he's shared with the boys how to make a proper snowman and how to dig a snow fort. He knows what sleds are good and he can tell which type of snow is best for certain activities. Most importantly, Matt can annihilate an opponent in a snowball fight. He's pretty darn accurate and in the following pictures he was killing the boys with snowballs. They were loving every minute of it.

About three years ago, we bought sleds for the boys. Now some of you might think that buying sleds was a total waste of money. After all, we live in San Diego County where its often warm and/or sunny. What many people dont understand about Southern California is that it offers its residents the best of both worlds. Our family lives 10 minutes from the beach, but we also live 1.5 hours from the mountains. In the wintertime, we can experience snow (even ski and snowboard,) but at the end of the day we can return home where the weather is temperate. The sleds we bought the kids a few years ago come out every single winter. So far, they havent outgrown the thrill of sledding. I hope they never do.


Ok... tomorrow its back to the grind. I gotta make lunches and get the kids ready for school.

Happy Monday.