Saturday, February 27, 2010

Slide Sledding

Bobby prepping the run of the latest activity at the Noonan's - Slide Sledding.

Snow Day

The boys building a giant snowman.



After the boys built the snowman, they moved on and attempted to create a Luge Track. The snow was very heavy, so it took more work than usual. Below, Liam and Nicky are trying to pull Bobby to deepen the track.

They gave Bobby a push, but he didn't make it far. Tonia had to get in on the action and pull him down. After a little while, the boys gave up and decided to take the sleds and ride down the slide. They had a blast, but this is not what a mother wants to see.

Note the branches behind us, that is one of our Apple Trees that was a casualty of the heavy snow -- it snapped in half.

Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Rural, Urban, Suburban

Liam's class has been studying rural, urban and suburban settings. As a culmination of this chapter, they are turning their classroom into "Neugebauer County." Each child had to bring in buildings (preferably built out of materials they could find in their recycling,) and/or vehicles, to represent each area.

Liam and Bobby decided they would build a farm shed and a fire station, and that Liam would take in a vehicle to represent each area. I thought they were very clever. They used a clementine container and box to make the shed. The firehouse was made from an inside out cardboard wine box, a toilet paper roll and an American Flag.

In the barn you will find pigs, sheep, and cows.





Monday, February 22, 2010

A Great Weekend in Lake Placid

We had such an amazing time in Lake Placid this weekend. Liam's skiing has really come along, he is super fun to ski with. It's fun to just take a chair lift and ski whatever looks good. Have to be careful when Liam gets to call the run, however, because you might end up racing ski cross, or taking jumps in the Terrain Park. Tonia tends to pick the steep, fast, groomers, and Bobby likes it all.

We skied, skated, took a bobsled ride, toured the town and sights, and went to a cool little festival that had hockey shoot-outs, luge, and curling. We also ate well, and enjoyed some yummy local beer and root beer.

We were having so much fun that we didn't take a lot of photos. Here are a few that we did take... Playing around on the 1932 Bobsled that was in the lobby of our hotel.

Watching some freestyle skiers practice.

The view from the top of the 120 m ski jump.

Waiting to take our bobsled run.



Ready for our bobsled run. Liam has been asking to take a bobsled ride for the past three years. This year he was just about tall enough, so they let him ride. When we were finished with the run, Liam said, "This was the best day of my life!!!!!!!!!! I want to go to the Olympics for bobsled!!!"


Just off the gondola, and getting ready to ski.


Tonia standing in front of the trail map. Can you tell why Whiteface's nickname is Iceface? We were lucky to have had fresh snow, and not so much wind. Usually the summit tends to get blown-off by midday. We got really lucky this visit.



The "Noonan Cup" standings. We had a race for the "Noonan Cup," which included skiing (both downhill and ski cross), speed skating, and swimming. The results were all very close, with Liam taking the Gold, Bobby the Silver, and Tonia the Bronze. Liam was the fastest skater by far, and he won two of the three ski cross races. Tonia lost all chance of a Gold or Silver as soon as ski cross was introduced into the mix. She is not a big fan of big air off jumps. Have to say, however, that ski cross is a blast. Glad Whiteface has a training area dedicated to ski cross so that we could let it rip.

Monday, February 1, 2010

NY Rangers and NJ Devils in the backyard

After Liam's game yesterday, several of the boys, and some parents, came over to skate. Liam with some of his buddies from his team, Kyle, Kevin, and Brendan. It was fun to listen to them as they pretended to be their favorite players from the Rangers and the Devils.


A couple dads got involved in the action.
After skating for a couple hours, everyone packed up their gear and headed back to the rink for stick-time. Stick-time is fun because they can practice some of the fancy shots -- like lifting the puck, and slapshots -- that Mrs. Noonan wasn't allowing in the backyard.