But first, an update

Melina is all of four-and-three-quarters now. She seems to have grown beyond her scared-of-everything phase, and it's hard to pinpoint exactly what phase she's in now. She pretty much wants to be playing with her friends *all the time,* which can be exhausting. When she has friends over I tend to do a lot of refereeing, although I generally try to keep out of the minor squabbles. She still wants to be with her friend Quin all the time, although Quin seems to be entering a sort of "girl germs" phase and would rather play with boys. That is, unless Melina wants to stand in as Princess Leia - that's always acceptable. Melina also likes to play with her eternal friend and sparring partner Amanda, as well as several cute little girls from preschool, and our neighbors across the street.

When Melina's not playing with friends we are frequently doing out door activities. It's been an incredibly warm winter, but we've managed to go skiing several times (often with other families with kids). Last weekend we went with 20 other friends to a "cabin" in Sunriver (a very large, sprawling cabin), with very high hopes of skiing every day, but unfortunately I was attacked by some sort of intestinal bug and spent most of the weekend a) lying on the couch reading b) lying on the couch watching the Olympics c) lying on the bed sleeping and d) lying on the bed bemoaning my fate. Jeff got a nice day of skiing in, and Melina got a trip to the High Desert Museum with some friends, but neither Melina or I saw any white stuff to speak of.

Melina is getting to be a pretty good skiier, though. Like everything else, it all depends on her mood. When she's in a good mood she's a great skiier. She falls, and she doesn't complain; she tackles the "backcountry" with gusto (she likes to ski through the trees instead of on the groomed trail); and she can go down minor hills without mishap. When she's in a bad mood, she spends most of the time in the sled complaining bitterly about the cold. That's why we've been going skiing with other families lately - it seems to improve the mood. (Are all four-year-olds this moody and fragile?)

In February we went to a different rental cabin with a different group of friends. It was beautiful, rustic, and quite a bit more relaxing than the Sunriver trip would prove to be. We had about 4 inches of new snow while we were there (the first photo is of Jeff and Melina standing in front of our car when we got back to the sno-park). Melina had a lot of fun playing in the snow with the other kids.

I usually take advantage of the long car trips to Mt. Hood to knit. I've knit several hats lately and I knit the one in the second photo for Melina. I also knit a ridiculously complicated scarf for a friend... maybe I'll post a photo before I give it away.

On the chicken front, today I finished siding the chicken coop with cedar shingles. It looks pretty random - shingling in a neat yet random way is a lot harder than it looks - but it's a vast improvement over the last look, which was a combination of tarpaper and red-painted plywood. I don't think the chickens appreciate it much (we haven't been getting many eggs lately) but the rest of us do.