It's been a while...

I'm about to go to bed, but I feel compelled to update this blog, albeit briefly! Since we last spoke...

• We went to the store with the plan to buy new laminate countertops for the kitchen, and we left with granite! Well, it's not in yet, but it will be soon!
• I cashed in my credit card points to buy three round-trip tickets to California for the kids' February break. They are BEYOND excited. Me, too! Honestly, February is THE coldest and snowiest month in Massachusetts. It will be nice to defrost for a week!
• Several days of bitterly cold temperatures caused the hot water line in our kitchen sink to freeze (which also feeds the dishwasher and the sink/tub in the kids' bathroom). As if that wasn't bad enough, three of our four heating zones froze up-- which shouldn't have happened, since they have antifreeze in them! Our plumber (who we last saw almost exactly one year ago...) came out and put more antifreeze in. He also sawed a nice hole in the back of our kitchen sink cabinet so that I could heat up the pipes more efficiently. Everything is thawed now! And no broken pipes-- thank goodness!!
• We went to Bingo Night at Niko's school, where I volunteered at the food table the entire time and hardly saw my family. BUT they had fun, and got as much food as they wanted. :) Actually, Niko had fun up until the very end, at which point he became bitter that he hadn't won anything. But he handled it alright.
• We decided to list our entertainment center for sale, thinking it would take a really long time to sell it. It is gigantic! And we ultimately want to put windows into that wall so that we can look at the back yard. Instead, I got one person who expressed interest. He and his family came on Saturday, paid the full price in cash, and hired movers to come and pick it up today. It's gone! In less than a week! So we have some new furniture headed our way. In the meantime, I am using our coffee table as a TV stand, and I need to paint the wall where the entertainment center used to be. Because I painted it AFTER we moved in and the furniture was in place. It looks really funny now, haha!
• Finally, we went to our first AHL hockey game! It was a fundraiser for Niko's school. And it was fun! I've never been to a real hockey game before. I don't know why I was surprised by all the fighting, but I was. Still, it was entertaining. And it was free bobble-head night, so the kids were super excited to get PRESENTS as soon as we walked in, haha! Niko is still disappointed that his team lost, though. Oh, well.

And that's been our life in a nutshell! It was actually almost 40 degrees today, which felt like summer in comparison to what we've had! We're in the thick of winter, and are just hunkering down. I've already planned one summer camping trip, and am fantasizing about setting up my hammock on the deck, once the deck is actually visible again... :)