We've taken on a lot, and somehow managed to stay in tact. Living life now as a family of 4!

Ok, so I fell off the blogging bandwagon for a while, but I didn't mean for it to go on THIS long without a post. In fact, I have a half-written one waiting to be finished and published, with pictures and everything!, but it will have to wait. Jake and I have both been struck down in our prime with a nasty little bug that likes to weaken you, then let you think you're better, then move in for the kill. We're going on 2 weeks now of one or both of us feeling anywhere from 'under the weather' to 'surely death would be less painful'. I won't go into too many gory details, but I will say this: given the choice, I'd choose durchfall over upchucking any day of the week. I haven't been sick like this in a long time, and to be honest, I'm a little surprised that it took this long to hit - I thought after the year of insanity we had I'd get crazy-sick a lot earlier. It has also been (although not so much today) CRAZY-COLD here. -40 with wind

It's hard to characterize a trip to summer in the middle of winter without falling back on worn-out phrases and descriptions: 'It was hot', 'It was nice', 'It was summer'. I've been thinking about what to write about this trip - probably the only one like it we will ever take  - and been having a having a hard time with how to present it. It was fun, extravagant, relaxing, sometimes ridiculous, entertaining, quiet, an adventure-but-a-tame-one. I think, though, all of the food and booze and nice accoutrements aside, the biggest thing about a warm vacation in the middle of winter is the feeling of air and water on skin. It feels so luxurious to walk out of your room into the warmth, miles of skin exposed to the air a mere 6 hours after you left -30 degrees where ALL your skin was cloaked in multiple layers of natural and synthetic fabrics to prevent it from freezing. Never has it been clearer to me that what is hard about winter isn't necessarily t