Snow, swimming, and camping out!!

February was teasing us with spring like conditions...it was pleasantly warm and the snow had mostly melted away...the kids could play outside and not get freezing cold.  But we knew it was too good to be true!  March has come in roaring like a lion...we got a foot to two feet of snow yesterday(depending on where you live), then it warmed up to 40 and started raining.  This morning it was a bone chilling 13 degrees at our place and windy and it was snowing more!  I'm not sure how much we've gotten today...at least 6 inches?!  Where did our spring weather disappear to??  With the windy gusts we are experiencing tonight we could have some amazing snow drifts in the morning!

Tyler, Kailee, Alyssum, and Adams had a great two weeks of swimming!  They learned so much and became much more confident swimmers.  Tyler's teacher all but got on her knees and begged him to be on the swim team.  She said he has the Engebretsen swim genes (my sister is a great swimmer and swam on the swim team with the same coach).  He loves to swim and enjoyed his time in the water, but said he really didn't want to be at the pool that much!  His first love is spending time outdoors, building and creating!

This week we went to Anchorage on Tuesday to pick up our friends, the Germains, at the airport.  We drove to Nikiski to get their bus(as it was being repaired by a friend there) and took it to Anchorage to get them.  Sounds easy enough?  Well....we left our house at 2:30 on Tuesday afternoon, drove the 100 miles to Nikiski to get the bus, the bus had a couple flat tires so Steve spent about an hour getting them pumped up and hooking up the trailer that we were towing.  We drove to Soldotna, stopped at Fred Meyers and found that the bus had a good flowing anti-freeze leak.  Steve attempted to tighten a hose, bought several gallons of anti-freeze, and we were on our way by 7pm!  Not quite driving in the light like we had hoped especially in a bus that has balled tires and towing a trailer. 

We stopped every hour to fill up the bus with anti-freeze, it was guzzling a gallon an hour!  We wondered if we were going to make it all the way to Anchorage.  In the pass we were met with several inches of new snow on the roads and it was snowing and blowing, and VERY dark.  We couldn't see more than the road in front of us!  Definitely makes for a long night of driving!  Steve drove the bus slowly through the pass, not wanting to get stuck or slide into anyone...we made it safely through.

We had made arrangements to stay with my sister in Palmer, but because of arriving in Anchorage so late we made the decision to "camp out" in the Fred Meyers parking lot.  Ever done that with 6 kids in the winter?  Guess there's always a first time for everything!!  Thankfully it didn't get below 29 degrees and we had winter gear and sleeping bags.  We slept fitfully, but we were warm enough with four people to a vehicle.  We woke at 7am and went to the airport to pick up our friends.  Everyone was a little on the tired side, but oh, what a fun story to tell!

The rest of the week was rather uneventful by comparison!  We spent that day with the Germains, unloading their belongings and letting the kids get reacquainted.  Then we got to spend the evening with my sister and brother-in-law...and we were never quite so happy to see a bed!  We all crashed for the night.  Our drive home was in the daylight and we got home in time for Ethan to go to Youth Group.

On Friday the kids had some school to make up and they did a great job of getting their heads into it and making up for the days we had missed!  Now I know what they can do!