What we do in the Midwest

Jan. 10^th, 2010

Today is Tolga’s second birthday. We had champagne with a good meal. It was my chicken curry recipe that I gave my dad to cook but my mom woke up and somehow took this exotic ethnic dish and turned it into a Midwestern hotdish. Yeesh.

It was our first day off in a while together, so Tolga and I barely slept in, he made a pancake breakfast, we talked with his family on the Internet, then went out.

We went to the museum because Sherah had free tickets. Turns out, I’ve never been to the Minneapolis Institute of Art, but its very much like The Met (in Manhattan) – just a smaller version. We went particularly to visit the section that had a traveling exhibit from the Louvre and it was quite the surprise but I don't really have anything else to write about it, because . . . We also went sledding with the kids. Owen had called me and said (at volume 10), “HEY RACHEL, DO YOU WANT TO GO SLEDDING WITH US? I WANTED TO GET THIS NEW SLED WITH STAR WARS ON IT BUT IT COST FIFTEEN MORE DOLLORS. SO YOU WANT TO GO SLEDDING? I’M FREAKING OUT! I’M F-R-E-A-K O-U-T! (He’s six and a really good speller). So Tolga and I got ready and headed out. I put on long johns, heavy pants, and snow pants, a thermal shirt, a button up shirt, and a coat. I can’t remember the last time I went outside dressed warm enough, but today I was a warm (albeit shapeless) body.

We met Owen and Asher at the top of the hill. Their cheeks were already red and snot was running down Asher’s nose. He was excited, and I took him on the first run down the hill with me. The sled had a wheel you could steer, to which Asher jammed it to the left so we zipped down, making a J-turn towards the end. Asher hopped out and said, “I turned! Did you see that? Jingle bells batman smells . . .” (I think he was happy) . . . and proceeds to climb up the hill. He soon asks me for help, reaching out his hand with a mismatched mitten hanging loosely exposing his bare wrist. His feet were moving but he wasn’t making any progress up the hill so I came up behind him, lifting up his coat to help him in his forward motion. We got to the top and Owen stole the sled from me and promptly went down three more times (being sure to set the sled down before he reached us to steal some more rides). We also found a good jump, had some near misses on hill collisions, and one snow spray in the face (to which Asher smacked Tolga, crying, “It’s your fault”).

Sledding sure is fun.