New Years Day

Welcome 2015! I think it was probably one of the more exciting days with all that happened. First of all, I participated in a polar bear plunge. I had never done one of those before, but I was pretty excited to do it. It all started when I heard that a group of people gather at Sand Beach every New Years morning to do the plunge. I mentioned that to Trevor Casey a while back, and he said that we should do it. It was one of those things I was on the fence about because it's not exactly fun to do alone. But once Trevor mentioned he was interested, and Eric Maughan mentioned he was also interested, we had ourselves an event. We have actually been talking about this for the past couple of months now, and the day finally came. We also invited a few other people to join. 

I showed up with Madie, and we were some of the fist to arrive. It was 28 degrees when we showed up, with wind chill factored in it was probably colder than that. The Atlantic breeze was pretty chilly. The water temperature according to NOAA was probably slightly above 40 degrees. Madie was pretty cold when we were waiting on the beach for people to show up. That wind was cutting right through our clothes. I was trying to keep some form of body temperature in me, so we tried to move around a bit to stay warm. Luckily, everyone else started to file in. Madie was complaining about how cold she was the whole time, poor girl. She just wanted to go home, she kept saying. But, the final few showed up and it was show time. 

Knowing Madie was feeling really cold, I wanted to get in and out ASAP. So as soon as everyone started getting ready, I stripped down really quickly, yelled out something inspired by adrenaline, and ran in. I was the first, and only one to begin. I trotted in, not thinking about the temperature my body was feeling. I just had on objective: immerse myself, and get out. I ran in 15 yards, flopped my body into the water for total immersion, and pulled myself out fast. I lost my balance when I stood up and tried to run, probably because of the cold. But I recall being pretty pumped and yelling. It was actually a good feeling. I made it back to my spot to get dried off and changed and watched everyone else head out. After me, Anne Dalton ran out which caught a lot of people by surprise because she was on the fence about going. She was followed by Sunshine and two of her kids, followed by the men. It was fun to watch everyone's reactions and how quickly everyone got changed. This will probably be a new tradition going forward!

After this, we had a special night: we had a guys night and a girls night. The guys night consisted of camping in the backyard and roasting marshmallows (both a couple of Finn's favorite things). The girls night consisted of building a fort in the living room, watching a movie, and eating some sweets. The kids absolutely loved this. A few highlights:

• Finn calls s'mores "Marshmallows, graham crackers, chocolate, camping"
• After Finn had his s'more fix, he looked at me and said, "Okay, let's go in the tent." Apparently, the show was over and he was done being at the fire by 6:30 pm. 
• After the movie was over, Madie looked at Mallory and said "Well, what should we do now?" Mallory replied, "Well, we need to lay down in bed." Madie said, "Good, we can lay next to each other and talk." She was really excited to talk to Mallory one on one. 
• Madie asked Mallory: "How do we build a fort?" Mallory said, "You just leave that to Mum." By the time it was done, she thought that was pretty cool. 
• For the record, Elvis sat next to the door and cried for 30 minutes after Finn and I left.

Getting ready to go in.

There I go!

The masses.

Post-plunge.

Madie was so excited to be in her fort.

Petranella even joined in on the fun.

Madie watched Annie. It's a pretty long movie, and about 90 minutes into it she said "Is this a really long movie?" Which means "When is this going to end?!?"

Meanwhile, in 20 degree weather...Finn was poking the fire.

And snuggling down. He slept so well and stayed very warm.