Final Fun Day in the Snow

Well you have to make hay when the sun shines, or rather make giant snowballs when the snow is sticking together. This afternoon, as the snow melted and became quite sticky, the kids were obsessed with making a big ball. I think it was Connor’s influence; suddenly everything has to be bigger and better. Brooke started the fun and I couldn't resist joining, hey I too like bigger and better, and that’s all I’m saying. I’m an American now :)

It was a beautiful evening, sunny, clear blue skies, nice day for pictures, although it's hard to get the exposure right with snow (all these photos were taken with -2/3 exposure compensation).

Welcome Back Gran

Gran, Lynne’s Mum, is back visiting us again for a couple of weeks. We had hoped for slightly better weather, more Spring-like so that she could enjoy being out in the garden, but not so thus far. Welcome back again Gran, great to have you here again. Enjoy your stay. Thanks for collecting her yesterday Randy and Brooke for the nice art project with the kids.

Lots of Snow.....in March??

My pleas for Spring two days ago were rewarded with about a foot of snow in West Lafayette last night. Roads were closed, all the schools were shut and it was a day to stay at home and drive everybody crazy.

We went sledding this afternoon which expending some energy and then Brooke filled them up with hot chocolate for the afternoon. So my question remains, where is Spring?

Where is Spring??

We're all starting to get a little desperate for Spring here in West Lafayette. Every couple of days we're teased with some sunshine and a few warm rays only to be quickly thrown back into freezing  temperatures again. Yesterday was pretty typical. 

Steef and Ginette came over with their girls and we all played outside for a few hours, albeit whilst well wrapped up in warm jackets. I even dragged the grill and a few deck chairs out from the garage and dusted their cobwebs. We threw on a few steaks, beef and tuna, and formally announced grilling season to have finally arrived. Yippeee....All of this jubilation was merely met with a bitterly cold and snowy morning....when will Spring arrive? Trying hard to utter these sentiments without  some profanity, this weather is now officially getting old.....

Irish Stew

We had a very relaxing end to a seemingly very busy weekend. In honor of St Patrick’s Day, Lynne cooked an Irish Stew. It tasted wonderful and very authentic. I should know, we had it countless times as children growing up in Ireland. Very fond memories indeed. We shared this meal with Randy and Lorraine, and Kay who is visiting Indiana for a couple of weeks.

Hope everyone has a great week, I’ll be back with an update later this week but for now it’s time for bed, Monday is rapidly approaching.

To My MBA Class....

With my St. Patrick’s Day post, I’m back blogging again. It happens every time, as we approach a set of final exams, the poor blog gets ignored.

Yesterday we ended the third quarter of my MBA at Booth with a brutally long Corporate Finance final exam. It’s all over now though for three weeks and my classmates are once again scattered with the wind to every part of the world. Giving a shout out to Andy who is now in London, Julien in Shanghai, Joe in Sonoma and the many who are still in Chicago, perhaps feeling sorry for themselves as they recover from the celebrations last night. See you all again soon.

Picture credit to Anya for the class photo and the photos taken yesterday from the university building of the Chicago river looking very festive for St Patrick’s day.

Happy St. Patrick's Day

To my family and friends around the world, Happy St Patrick’s Day. There are so many great reasons to celebrate today; everybody has their own specific motives. Yet for many Irish people who live around the world, who are often quite reserved about actually being Irish, myself included, their own internal celebration is often a little more mooted than the rather more brash celebrations of others.  Yet we do celebrate. I personally celebrate with much quiet thought about what it means to be Irish and the affirmation of how proud we are as a people. How our individual and collective accomplishments are respected around the world. As for celebrating like all others do, well, as you know, we Irish do enough of that throughout the year.  Hope you all have a wonderful day.

Shown below are the customary photos of the kids in their Irish attire which Granny Owens sent a few weeks ago.