So, a funny thing happened in February.
It snowed.
A lot.
The Patriots won the Superbowl. Again.
Yay.
On the way home after the big game, it began to snow.
The forecast said, "Maybe an inch of accumulation."
They were wrong.
When we woke the next morning, it was STILL snowing.
We ended up getting about 6 inches, I'd say.
I didn't measure.
School was cancelled.
Huzbend stayed home from work.
Ralph was in doggie heaven.
Our neighborhood became a winter wonderland.
Since snow is so infrequent, the kids go crazy when we get some.
Believe it or not, this was not great snow man making snow.
It was quite fluffy and puffy.
"Can we go sledding?"
(subtext - "Can we have hot chocolate?")
Well, heck yeah!
It was still snowing when we headed out the door to the middle school.
Katie was up first.
Mikey was ready for some serious snow fun.
I swear this child does not get cold.
Neither does this child.
Must be the facial hair.
And, I don't even know what to say about this guy.
Seriously.
Not one shiver.
He even EATS the snow.
We realized that we need a new, bigger sled.
Our little saucer just doesn't cut it anymore.
I guess it's excruciating waiting for the person to walk allllllll the way back up the hill.
Especially Mikey, who seems to take about an hour each time.
Part of the problem might be that every time Mikey goes down the hill, it's like a yard sale.
Hat and sled go flying every which way.
After about an hour and a half of hard core sledding, everyone was exhausted.
Mikey moved on to snow angels and just began rolling his body down the hill.
One last go......MY TURN!
The next day, there was STILL no school.
I don't know if you've heard, but our area isn't really prepared for this sort of snow.
Our town has just a handful of plows and our school district incorporates, like 3 towns.
So, there was no way they could clear the roads in one day.
It's pretty laughable from a New Englanders standpoint.
Huzbend hitched a ride to work (no biking) and the kids acquiesced to another round of sledding at the middle school.
They weren't quite as excited this time around.
And since there was less snow, there was not as much of a cushion for Crazy Sled Mikey.
Maybe next time we should make him wear his bike helmet.
"Ow. My head."
Katie was happy.
Sledding = hot chocolate.
It was also just a tad bit warmer out than the day before.
Any wipe out you can walk away from is a good wipe out.
Although the snow was getting skimpy on our hill, it was still pretty darn fast.
The hill's pretty steep.
"I could lay here FOREVER."
Peace. Love. And Hot Chocolate.
With lots of marshmallows, whipped cream and sprinkles.
There was some kind of miscommunication between the siblings which lead to a very grumpy looking Mikey.
He decided to zen out in the snow.
The biggest problem with getting snow where we live is the Freeze Factor.
It will warm up enough to start melting the snow, but then the temps drop
at night and it all freezes over making everything an ice rink.
It did refreeze into some pretty cool formations though.
Was Elsa here?
As you can see (ignore the grumpy kid with the giant snowball), I shoveled the sidewalk.
I'm nice and responsible like that.
No one else in our town is....well, except our next door neighbors who moved here from Pennsylvania.
This non-shoveling deal is important to remember for later on in the blog....
The kids were excited.
We had icicles.
It's the little things, people.
"Can I lick it?"
We had one more day of No School because of that Superbowl night storm.
It was all because of the snow melting and then refreezing to ice.
Finally, on Thursday, the kids went back to school. I think there was a delay.
And then the next day, they got out of school early because MORE snow was coming!
We got another 3-4 inches.
We didn't do much that weekend.
The kids didn't even go to swim lessons.
And then, Sunday night ANOTHER round of snow hit dumping a very heavy 6 more inches on top of all that.
Here are some pictures from my morning walk with Ralph.
I was out early enough that there was no one else around.
Did I mention the snow was HEAVY?! Tree limbs were busting all over the place.
There are a lot of trees around here.
Ralph had a grand ole time bouncing around in the snow.
He even hunted some wabbits.
Poor trees.
Some of them couldn't take it and just fell over.
Our snowy house.
Casualties in our backyard.
The official measurement for this round of snow.
And another round of shoveling.
Sigh.
This one hurt for days afterward.
Ouch.
That pile is about 4 feet tall.
Even Ralph was a little tired of the snow.
"Okay. I'd really like to poop on grass again."
No work for Huzbend and again no school for the kids.
Time to go sledding!
Again!
"Who needs a sled when you've got a head to slide down on?"
"SNOW-way. Hahahahaha. Snow. No. Way?
Never mind."
"Do we have'ta?"
Some older neighbor kids built a nifty jump.
"OMG. OMG. OMG. OM...."
"Ouch"
Now for a slow motion fall.
Only old guys do slow motion falls.
Jeez.
Only Mikey would end up going off the jump backwards.
It's hard to top his spectacular finish.
BEST. SNOW. DAY. EVER.
Ralph ate about two tons of snowballs.
And he, in turn, peed out about 265 gallons of liquid.
Mikey and Huzbend weren't done when we got home.
They had an "epic" snowball fight.
They were literally 3 feet from each other.
I think Mikey lost this one.
Huzbend soon gave up - guess he was just winning too much - and I was left with the Snow Monster.
One more snowball fight.
I think I won.
You're not going to believe this, but that 6 inches of snow (on top of the already 8+ inches that were there) was enough to close our school district down for an entire week.
Yes. An ENTIRE week.
We have a big school district so clearing all the roads and all of the schools took a while.
And, remember, I mentioned that people don't shovel their sidewalks....
Even when the roads were clear, they couldn't send the kids to school because they would've had to walk on the ROAD because the sidewalks had almost 2 ft + of snow/ice on them due to non-shoveling and plows pushing the snow up onto them.
The kids were SO BORED.
One day, some friends asked us to head out to an old-golf-course-turned-city-park for some more sledding.
Of course, we said yes - even if the kids were beyond tired of the snow.
Anything to get out of the house.
It was big hill.
Mikey took a shot at it....
Had a pretty rough fall on his forehead (there was a bruise - definitely helmets next time) and decided he was done after one run.
He used his butt the rest of the time.
Katie had some massive tanks as well.
But, she stuck it out.
See. Butt sledding.
For the final run, Katie and two friends from middle school decided to go down the hill three on a sled.
Believe it or not, they survived.
Only one fell off the sled.
And surprise! It WASN'T Katie.
The rest of the week was spent trying to keep the kids from killing each other.
A blanket fort was built.
A mini-blanket fort was built.
TV was watched and video games were played.
The kids also had a dentist appointment and we went out to see The Lego Movie 2.
"Are they EVER going back to school?
Don't get me wrong. I love them and all.
But, they're so noisy.
And, I'm having a hard time getting my full 15 hours of nap time."
BOOP!
"No one ever takes me seriously."
Friday of that week, Huzbend decided to ride to work using his "ice bike" (it has knobby tires).
We had to pick him up on the way home that night as the trail was horrible and the road was even worse - no bike lane (it was taken up with snow) in addition to crazy drivers.
No thank you.
I told you that pile of shoveled driveway snow was big.
We were able to dig into it and make a hole for Mikey to hide in.
Towards the end of that week, the snow was melting and rain was moving in.
The snow had become REALLY heavy.
We decided it might be a good idea to get some of it off the flattest part of our roof.
I chickened out climbing up.
But, Huzbend pushed through his aversion to heights and got on up there.
We found another casualty of the heavy, wet snow.
Ralph never used it anyways.
It was basically storage for our emergency water supply.
Huzbend and Mikey took the opportunity to try their hand at building an igloo.
Katie assisted.
As did Ralph.
As the rain fell, the igloo became more and more unstable.
They decided to call it quits.
Not too shabby.
Katie put herself to work shoveling the back patio.
I did not tell a lie.
SHE decided to do this.
Shocking.
Where was she all the other times I had to shovel?
Hmmmm?
Huzbend knocked giant icicles off our house.
The super double bummer about missing school all that week was that Valentine's Day was that Thursday.
That meant no school party for Mikey.
He was disappointed.
Katie was disappointed that she couldn't eat 3/4's of the candy she was supposed to give to other people.....
Our plan was to celebrate Eat Too Much Chocolate Valentine's Day on the weekend.
But, I felt bad for them and on actual Valentine's Day I let them open these puppies.
Some gluten free/nut free (basically everything free) truffles I got online.
Katie was BEYOND ECSTATIC.
She loved them.
Mikey thought they were just "okay".
On the weekend, we broke out the fondue chocolate to celebrate Valentine's.
Chocolate: Dark AND Milk
To Dip: Strawberries, bananas, marshmallows, mini-cupcakes and brownie bites.
The only time this kid is quiet is when he's eating.
Katie was in choco-heaven.
It was a LOOOONG two weeks filled with snow and whining.
But, all that was behind us as we looked forward to the next week.
It was time for Mid-Winter Break.
And Mid-Winter break meant Katie and I were headed off to DISNEYLAND with her Advanced Drama classmates on a four day field trip.
Huzbend and Mikey would follow soon after.
Stay tuned for our next episode where we'll find out......
How dramatic can a trip with drama students be?
Does Mikey have multiple personality disorder?
Will Huzbend survive yet another parade and fireworks show?
How many Disneyland desserts can one woman eat in a week?
Here's a hint on that last one....NOT ENOUGH.
