Maggie & Stella's first soccer practice

Maggie and Stella are always interested when Will is dribbling a soccer ball around and they've tried imitating soccer moves when watching Will's soccer practices.  Plus, many of their classmates were joining a particular team so we signed them up as well and began what will hopefully result in years of joy for Patti (Patrick has a feeling that the girls in soccer for her is what Will's interest in Star Wars is to him).  Hopefully next season practice won't be on Saturday morning so Patti can sleep before practice.

Maggie is the eager-beaver, trying hard to please or mimic so she followed every direction and was glued to the coach (as you'll see in every picture below).  Stella is her own bird and while she did more than we could have imagined, she had her moments when she just refused to comply.  Just Stella being Stella.  But it was a COLD windy day and neither complained, they loved their soccer skirts, shin-guards and team shirts.

Surprise trip to the National Aquarium

On Saturday the 22nd, Patti was able to come home early (in the middle of the night) so we surprised the kids with a rare family Saturday outing.  It had been a while so we headed up to the National Aquarium in Baltimore.

The girls still love the dolphins and we had our own private window for a few minutes so Maggie and Stella were in heaven.

Will wanted to see the jellyfish again.  He still talks about the one that stung daddy last summer (and that daddy caught and buried on the beach....)

The one-finned turtle paid Patti and the kids a special visit.  They're harder to see in this video, but that's them in front.  Stella was pretty scared but Maggie and Will thought it was very special.

Afterward, we enjoyed a delicious seafood lunch on the harbor.

And the neighboring storefront had a life-size Bumblebee replica for whatever reason so Will lost his mind.

So all in all, a complete departure from the usual Dad and kids running errands on a Saturday, and the kids had a blast.

No more snow

This winter has been crazy with snow and snow days.  Like we said in earlier posts, if school is delayed our kids don't have school at all because they don't come in for an hour or less.  So the kids have had a day off of school on average every two weeks.  Very odd for Maryland.

So here is a breakdown of the March snow days:

March 3rd:  Surprise snow day plus government closure so Patrick got to spend the girls' birthday with them.

March 17th:  Happy St. Patrick's Day to us!  Another snow day plus Patrick was home because the government shut down.  He swears he didn't drink a Guinness until the afternoon...

Patrick and the kids had loads of fun in the backyard as mommy slept off her night shift.

And they discovered icicles...

March 25th:  Another dusting but enough to shut down the schools.  Patrick braved the 2 inches and somehow managed to get to work.

March 30th:  After 12 hours of hard rain, it started to snow while Will and Patrick were braving the elements.  It was nearly 60 the next day and it hasn't come close to freezing since.  Whew!