First week of Feb.

During February, the weather has alternated being cold and threatening snow and warm/rainy, with the snow almost completely melting. Mid-month, we saw through to the lawn for the first time since early January. It's so strange to be becoming accustomed to perpetually having snow on the ground! We haven't been too stir crazy and have been kept busy, mostly indoors.

On the 1st, we went over to Luke's house for a Super Bowl party with a Pittsburgh theme, since that's the hometown of our friend Liz (see photo), a huge Steelers fan. She set Caden up with his own Steelers hat and Terrible Towel, and he enjoyed the attention and excitement of rooting 'Go Steelers' and hanging out with the grad students.

The following weekend, it warmed up a bit. On Sunday, we headed out for a hike on the railroad trail, but we arrived in tennies to find that it was still snowy and slushy. Instead, we walked around downtown (the old part of) Marblehead - Caden especially enjoyed rediscovering the 'old town' toy shop.

Caden's friend Osamu - a post-doc at the lab who Caden loves to play with at lab get-togethers - went back to Japan early in the month (and was offered an asst. professor position - congrats, Osamu!). He brought Caden a Japanese coloring book, which Caden was super excited about. He also surprises us by saying that he knows the names of some of the characters 'from school' (really?).

Osamu also brought a Thomas the Train puzzle - Caden's first 40-piece puzzle, and he completed it with only minor help! We tend to not give him activities that we think would be too frustrating or challenging, so we are always surprised by how we sometimes underestimate him!

Hope you are all staying warm, dry and healthy!