Happy St. Paddy's Day

And a big Happy Birthday to my favorite leprechaun, Alina, who turned 20 today. No more teenagers in the family. One more year to be legal.

How lucky is that to be born on St. Patrick's Day? Her due date was March 16th. The Sullivan in me was determined that she would be born on the 17th. And after I made the traditional boiled dinner for Lloyd, Keara and my mom, Alina obliged. Grandma Sullivan made sure she had a St. Patrick's Day Bear for her hospital photo.

Ever since, she's played up the Irish and celebrated her birthday in style. I particularly like this ensemble, which she wore to preschool in Nigeria. Actually, she wore the dress and pin to school, and came home in a leprechaun hat.

To celebrate we joined some fellow Nordic Club members at Teacup to help out with an adventure. Students from the Oregon and Washington Schools for the Blind came through the snow today to ski! There were about 30 students, with varying degrees of visual impairment, and as many volunteers. The snow was excellent, and so were the kids. A few had skied before, downhill. A few had snowshoed. But it was a first for Nordic skiing for all of them. I had a 17 year old name Desi. She was a natural. I walked beside her while she skied. She started leaving me in the dust on any kind of downhill. Forcing me to run. Run. In SNOW boots. Not a pretty sight. She liked to go fast. She was also an excellent snowball maker with even better aim. Impromptu snowball fights were the norm all day.

Tonight they are all sleeping at the boy scout camp at White River. The National Forest Service Rangers put on a nature program for them there after the ski. My bet is that there will be a lot of tired kids!

Tomorrow we go back up (by 8:30 am) so I'm going to keep this very short- I've got to get to bed early so I can keep up with Desi tomorrow. And this time I'll wear my skis.