What a Weekend!

Well, Lilly was sick with a bad cold and minor fever all week.  It started Sunday afternoon with her just not feeling great. Then in the middle of the night she started the barking cough of croup.  Had another bad round at 5, so I put in for a sub, cranked out some sub plans (luckily we were watching a movie for part of class) and spent a rather enjoyable day at home with her. It seemed she was well enough to attend daycare on Tuesday. That night she spiked a fever, so Nick cancelled lab and stayed home. He brought her to the doctor, it was decided viral but they did a strep culture just to be sure, which came back negative.  She said if she's not better by Friday, bring her in then.  The pattern all week was she would seem like she was well enough to go back to Tree Top, no fever during the morning, then the fever spikes late afternoon.  So on Wednesday she needed to stay home.  It was conveniently a snow day for me (8 inches and strong winds), so I stayed home, Nick cancelled lab Thursday, and I stayed home Friday. Friday she finally turned the corner after sleeping in until 9:15! I did bring her back to the doctor on Friday, she had an ear infection but we were holding off on antibiotics until Sunday if she didn't improve. But improve she did, so we had lots of fun this weekend.

Saturday we wanted to go for a hike at the Northern Great Lakes Visitor Center, and even use the snowshoes there.  Lilly wasn't interested in that plan though (the snowshoes made her nervous) so instead we did the bingo activity at the visitor center and then headed to CoCo's in Washburn for lunch.

Saturday after naps (well, we can't really call what Greta did a nap) we went to the final period of the Northland College hockey game and when we got home we went outside and played in the snow. It is unseasonably warm, low 30s, which means perfect packing snow.  Lilly came out with a big spoon for eating the snow and we all had a great time.  We already had the giant snowman from Christmas, the baby snowman, and their pet cat in the yard.  Saturday we added a whale shark to the menagerie.  I had to call Nick and Lilly in at 5:20, they were both having so much fun, they lost track of time.

The whale shark.  Unfortunately the lack of contrast makes it
hard to see the creature.

Greta spent about 25 minutes on the kitchen floor playing with her snowsuit, Lilly's snow pants, and two packages of V8. She had fun, I was rather bored.

Sunday morning we hung out and played, as both girls unfortunately decided to be up early.  Lilly has entered her imaginary world again, and all of us are characters from Jake and the Neverland Pirates.  This morning was the first day in ages where she didn't wear a dress, since she was dressed as Izzy and Izzy doesn't wear a dress.

Izzy swabbing the deck of Bucky

On Saturday at the Northern Great Lakes Visitor's Center, we gave Lilly the choice of snowshoeing on Saturday and going out to lunch on Sunday or vice versa.  She picked snowshoeing on Sunday, so after Greta's nap (which was a remarkable 90 minutes, her morning naps usually max out at 45 minutes), we bundled up and headed back to NGLVC.  

We were greeted by a very friendly employee who pointed out the pheasant by the bird feeder and also pointed out the snowy owl on the power line.  After checking out the pheasant, we picked up our snowshoes (which the NGLVC lets people just take out on the trails for no cost) and headed out to the trails.  As we started walking, Lilly said, "this is awesome!" and enjoyed her time out on the trail.

Checking out the pheasant

Strapping on snowshoes

I carried Greta in the front carrier, she seemed to enjoy her time

About a third of the way around, she got tired out and Nick gave her
a shoulder ride for a bit before she strapped the shoes back on.

Reading the description about the pond

We spent some time inside the NGLVC, doing another bingo sheet, finding animals in the displays.  Then it was time to go but we first drove out to find the snowy owl.  The pictures aren't great, they were taken with my phone, it was raining, and cloudy - and the bird is white, but here are some of the pictures we took.  (I took a few, then Nick took some since the bird was on his side of the van). It was a very beautiful bird.  Lilly seemed to be anxious for us to get home and a bit irritated with us taking so many pictures of the bird.

Home for leftover pizza for lunch, naps (again, Greta failed to take any kind of nap) and then back outside for more fun in the snow.  We had to finish the octopus from yesterday and Lilly wanted a dog.  I started making the dog, but it was in the wrong part of the yard (it needed to be next to her whale shark, which is her outside bed) so I carved it into a random creature type thing.  Then Nick and Lilly hauled three sleds worth of snow over to the whale shark.  While we were trying to figure out how to make it into a dog, Nick had the idea on how to make it into a Gup, like the little ships on the TV show Octonauts.  Lilly was stoked.  I brought Greta inside (she had been outside for almost 45 minutes) and Nick and Lilly began construction.  

Her whale shark

Pretending to be a penguin

She called this her snowmobile

Keeping an eye on everything

The finished GUP-L

Whale shark and GUP-L

My random creature

Driving her GUP.

Hiding in it in case it gets attacked

Octopus

During her play time she beheaded the cat, so we are down an animal.   Lilly had freezing hands when I went out to snap pictures and Nick came in to watch Greta.  During this time our neighbor down the street dropped off Rice Krispie treats and peanut butter cookies to thank Nick for always snow blowing her front sidewalk.  

It was a great way to wrap up a week with Lilly being sick - she certainly needed to get out of the house and expend that energy she finally had after a week of reading books (on Monday I think we read over 200 pages) and watching Octonauts on TV.