Rollercoaster ride

And for once I don't mean my life! I am talking about the weather. Last Tuesday we had huge storms roll through that produced a tornado after it got by us. But the high winds did damage, again, our big machine shed. Pushed a side in and damaged 3 doors.


The next day it was 70 degrees. Friday morning we woke up to it snowing up a storm. Colder temps and high winds the next couple days. Tuesday it was 68 degrees and I wore capris, which is big for me. (I'm always cold.) Our first daffodils also opened that day!

Then a warm and cold front collided over us Wednesday afternoon. Last night I woke up to 1/2" hail, rain, thunder, and lots of wind. Then in the really wee hours, it changed to sleet and snow.

So this morning the poor little daffodils were a bit battered and sitting in snow. Awwww, gotta love spring weather!

Welcome Winter!

Matthew was super excited when he got up this morning and discovered SNOW! Like enough snow to PLAY in. It truly was miraculous to him.


Here Matthew is wearing his new snowpants and snowboots. Finally the morning has come to put them to good use.

Finally the child sized snow shovel my Grandmom gave me around his age, was broken out and put to good use.



If only it had been a snow day...

Holiday season

It has been a long holiday season. One that ended up overwhelming me. There just wasn't enough time to get stuff done!

It started with hiking, when there was a spare moment.


Matthew played outside in the warm weather.

Dec. 20th we got our first snowfall that stuck. A dusting, but it gave Matthew an excuse to use his Spiderman snow boots.

Christmas Eve day Matthew had a great time hanging out with his Auntie. He got 2 pairs of overalls from her and they have been a huge hit. He wore a pair to Christmas Eve service!

Auntie, Matthew, and I went to Christmas Eve brunch where my Grandmom lives. She has been having a really rough time since the stroke. Probably a combo of the stress of surgery and stroke back to back, cold turkeying off depression meds, dementia, and lots of new meds. As they try to figure out what meds work and are needed, we never know what kind of a day she'll be having. Luckily, she had a good day Christmas Eve.

I realized I never took 1 picture of Phil being home or Christmas. The part of me that craves having photographic memories is very sad, but the part of me that feels I miss out on memories by spending some much time behind the lens, doesn't. We had Phil for 5 blissful days. Matthew and I took him to the airport yesterday morning. I was worn out by Christmas Day, but I rallied. My Mom was sick with the flu Thursday night till Monday. We all got tons of lovely things this year. I still have Christmas packages to send out. My motto this Christmas is, "A day late, dollar short." Sigh. One of Matthew's favorite gifts is this track set. It is out a significant amount of time every day!

Winter Wednesday #2 Snow

By 2 pm the ground was pretty much free of all snow, but Matthew made the most of the snow in the morning. (And it was the first time since Monday I was able to break into our mailbox.)

I still can't believe we had enough to play in.


Since we did get snow, we collected a cup full for the Winter Wednesday Snow challenge and some more to melt and pour through a coffee filter.


While we waited, Matthew warmed up with hot cocoa.


Once melted down, we discovered that our cup of snow was actually 1/4 c. of liquid! (And very dirty, I'm going to say it may have been the operator...) What a difference! When we poured our melted snow into a coffee filter, we discovered that there was dirt in our snow. Not alot, but there was definitely reddish dirt particles. It didn't photo well so you'll just have to trust us.

And that's the end of our 1/2 a day of snow!

Because we got this...

...measly dusting, maybe an inch of snow...

...Phil has a snow day...

Really?

Zone 8

Got Sleet?

Check.

Flakes

Ladies and Gentlemen, we have tiny snowflakes in the air!

We have frozen rain on outside objects.

We will be in the low teens tonight.

When did I move to the arctic?

The last of the spring break pictures

A cool car that I happened to get behind. As we all know, supporting the troops is near and dear to my heart.

While visiting Phil the last weekend of break we got snow on the first day of spring! What the heck!

The boys doing what boys do best.

We took Matthew for the first time to Chuckie Cheese.

Riding a horse. He liked the rides, but the games were a little beyond him yet.

Doing military chin-ups. We went to a military event the guys held. I should have taken a picture of the Army Hummer. It's pretty cool. While we were there a lady and her son came by. She said the reason they stopped was because her 9 yr old son was a huge fan of the Army and wanted to enlist at 18 to be a snipper. She said at every birthday they celebrate it's only so many more yrs till he can join. The son was in heaven to receive so much cool stuff. I thought it was cool how calmly the lady accepted her young son's decision.

Get a ball...

It's good! Matthew would have played basketball all day if I would have let him. He absolutely adores it.

Gloomy weather = remodeling

Remodeling must be in the air everywhere. One of my favorite blogs was talking about remodeling the kitchen in their new house. Unfortunately, I have the pleasure to talk about the continuing efforts to finish off our dining room. Phil has a week vacation scheduled in about a month and I'm hoping that we'll have it done then, including the floor! Cross your fingers. We have only been working on this for 16 months!

For about the last week, we've had fog that last most, if not all, of the day.

At first it was really cool, now I'm dying for some warm sunshine.

Matthew has taken advantage of the warmer weather to play outside. He runs, jumps, and of course, kicks what's left of the snow.

Our new dining room color. What do you think. I think it will be bright and cheerful.

Goodbye strange hole, hello dining room.

Winter weather

Since the beginning of Dec. we've had over 20", which is really remarkable. We haven't had a winter like this since probably '74. Combine all the snow with 3 weeks of below freezing weather and then a week stuck below 0, with driving winds, and you have a recipe for disaster!

Now everyone knows when it rains, it pours, and boy did it around our house! Over half our pipes had froze up by Friday morning, so we left for my parents house till the spring thaw. Saturday morning a plumber stopped by to say one of the rentals had frozen and burst pipes. That was so really expensive so I figured ours would be too. Phil had just found out his car needed as many repairs as the pipes and would cost the same. And my favorite appliance broke, the washing machine. Yikes!

So Matthew and I stayed at my parents from Friday till Wednesday morning. Tuesday the pipes got fixed at our house for 1/10th the price of the rental pipes. Tonight Phil comes home and the repairman for the washer will come tomorrow. Hopefully it will be a simple fix too.

I took all of these pictures Monday. It started warming up Monday, but it was still below freezing. We also had heavy fog that stayed till 2 in the afternoon. So the fog coated the trees and bushes like heavy frost. It was really quite beautiful.

Anyone feel hearty enough to come spend the winter with us??? Any of you CA relatives? (I know you complain about it being cold at 50's. Think you can make it through -17 degrees?)

Another snow storm, below 0 temps, unforseen events, cabin fever, and still beauty

I thought he looked so cute, I made him sit down and let me take him photo.

We got hit by another arctic front yesterday, wind chills 20 to 30 below 0, temp below 0 over night. We had to drive 20 mph home yesterday in whiteout conditions. Drifting had already started across the road and our driveway again, but we made it in 20 mins. (Normal drive home 5 mins.) We got up this morning and the hot water pipe in the kitchen had froze up and the cold nearly. Yikes. Then when washing laundry, the washing machine broke down. After doing the dishes in the dish pan in the bathtub, I noticed that the drain pipe in the kitchen sink must be froze up too because the water won't drain. Isn't it always something???

Meanwhile to help keep cabin fever at bay, we blew alot of bubbles and played with all the toys we own. Not to mention jumping down our slide and on the couch when Mom isn't in the room.

And just when I thought the day had been rather a wreck, I looked out the window. I saw a rainbow, no way! Notice all the blowing drifting snow.

It came down on either side of the sun. Scratch that, Mom told me they made the news and they are actually double sundogs. People thought they were rainbows because they were unusually large.

It was so unexpected and beautiful.

I'm hoping it's the promise of a better day tomorrow. Tomorrow will be our second day of very low temps and nasty wind chill values and no school. Pray that cabin fever doesn't get the best of us! (Oh and that maybe spring can come on time and not in May! We need to see a little grass so we can run!)