Dear Harry and Smelly (over the holidays, you have named your boobies), 

I hope you are keeping warm these days. This is now our 6th snow day in 8 regular school days –  and we’re going a little stir crazy here. Today, you’re at your cousins for the morning and I’ll pick you and C and A up in a few hours and head to the new Lego Movie. 

My principals have now requested us to post assignments on Schoology so that students can have something to do and learn while we aren’t in classes. In theory, this is a good idea, but when kids aren’t in our classrooms, we can’t count on many doing the work, and some have gone overboard and worked WAY too much…..some parents have complained that kids are doing too much work and it is stressing them out. I’ve got to be mindful to stay calm when we finally return and not go nuts with assessments and piling work on.

The latest 1 Second Everyday Video:
Here’s our 2018 in one second videos. You’ll see date nights, skiing, my gun anthem clips , and some great vacations (DC, Disney, St. Croix and Destin, and Jackson, WY), more bikes, 5 year old parties, and smiles again this year. I am a lucky Daddy. 

What you’re doing these days: 

Tonight we made more Shrinky Dink nametags for your new stuffed animals, Richard (the lion) and Pika (the giraffe). You bought them with your own allowance money this weekend, despite Mommy and I trying to talk you out of it. Here’s a shot of two of the nametags and a picture that you took of your animals. 

You’re a super skier – you finished lessons this season up at Stevens Pass with Natalie from the Olympic Snow Sports Ski School. You loved Natalie by the end of the 6 weeks; she helped you make some good turns on steeper hills than last year – and because she had gummi bears for you and your classmates. 

A recording

We were on the swivel chairs just talking the other day and you picked up Herman Melville’s Greatest Works and started to tell this story. 

In my life these days:

I’m proud to be taking piano lessons with Virginia, our neighbor down the street. I started back in October and meet her most every Monday night at 9:20pm! The time is perfect for me since you and Mommy are in bed already. I’ve got a couple of Bach minuets, The Glasgow Love theme from Love Actually, and a songbook from LaLa Land. This has been on my bucket list for a long time and I’m so thrilled that I’m playing piano again. I’ll insert one of my pieces sometime. 

A summary of a book or podcast I liked:

I listened to Life After Death by Damien Echols. Damien was one of the West Memphis Three, teen boys pinned for gruesome murder they didn’t commit in 1993, then sent to jail (Damien to Death Row and 9 years of solitary confinement) for seventeen years! His story reveals the sickening life of a prisoner, and a scathing first-hand account from the wrong end of the criminal justice system. 

I was awed by how Damien transformed himself into a survivor of the system, devoting himself to personal transformation through study, meditation, and force of will against the the guards and other inmates around him. Several documentaries have been made about him, and he’s got books and many videos (including the documentaries Paradise Lost (1996) and West of Memphis (2012). 

You are asleep with your stuffies in your rainbow room right now – though you came out several times with “questions” that you had to ask me and Mommy. Sleep well, mi amor.