We are finally in to February and already we have noticed the longer days. It is completely light by 9:15am and not getting dark until 5:30pm. We are gaining about 6 minutes of daylight a day.

Last Thursday we had some excitement. Riley's back began hurting in the early afternoon and by about 7pm he literally couldn't move or get up off the couch it hurt so bad. We ended up taking a trip to the emergency room that night. It took us over a half hour to just to get from the couch to the car.

He stayed on the couch through the weekend and was feeling better by Monday. On Monday morning he was getting ready for work and went to tie his shoes and relapsed and wasn't able to get up off the floor. I got off work really early that day and brought him to the doctor. After an Xray, MRI and epidural injection he was feeling much better by Tuesday and was even able to go back to work. He has a bulging disc and was having severe muscle spasms that actually caused the majority of pain and inability to move. He has physical therapy appointments this next week to begin trying to heal it.

Riley was so miserable, I felt so bad for him! A morphine shot in the butt made it a bit better.

The weekend before Riley's back began hurting we went and rented skate skis and tried it out over the weekend. Skate sking is a mix between downhill skiing and cross country skiing.... well sort of. They are thin skis similar to cross country skis but they don't have traction on the bottom like cross country skis do. With out that traction on the bottom you can move a lot faster in a skating motion.

We live about 5 minutes from 50+ miles of groomed trails designated for cross country or skate skiing. A lot of the trails are even lit at night! So last thursday (before Riley hurt his back) we went over to a local shop and got skis, bindings, boots and poles. We were so excited to be able to get out and enjoy the snow! Riley won't be going out for another week or two until he knows his back is feeling better.

Last Thursday I took them out for test run on my own. I pretty much had all the trails to myself and it is amazing how great of a workout it is. The best part is we don't have to pay for a lift ticket and can go anytime we want just for an hour or as long as we want to be out for.

Riley is feeling a lot better over the last couple days!

We went to have sushi and Riley ordered what they called the Alaskan Mosquito. In the picture, Riley already pulled the wings and antennaes off but it was a giant mosquito and looked really cool. We were waiting forever and starting to get a little irritated and wondered what could possibly be taking so long to make a sushi roll. Well, when they brought it out we then realized it was pretty artistic and took a lot of work to make. It had smoked salmon and cream cheese wrapped in rice with a smoked eel mixture on the outside wrapped around the rice. It was delicious, not to mention huge.