10 snow days

In January, we had 10 snow/cold days, 2 2-hour delays and 1 holiday.

School was closed:

Jan

Fri 3 (They went to school 1 day after Christmas break and then were out for 6 more days)

Mon 6

Tues 7

Wed 8

Mon 20 (MLK Day)

Tues 21

Wed 22

Thurs 23

Mon 27

Tues 28

Wed 29

We attended school 11 days:

Jan

Thurs 2

Thurs 9

Fri 10

Mon 13

Tues 14

Wed 15

Thurs 16

Fri 17

Fri 24 (2 hour delay - which happened to be 5 hours of school in the middle of an 11 day break)

Thurs 30 (2 hour delay)

Fri 31

It snowed a lot. There was snow on the ground for well over 2 weeks - that doesn't happen often. We shoveled a lot. Played in the snow a lot. It was COLD a lot. We wore pajamas a lot. We ran space heaters a lot. Our furnace ran a lot. We dressed in layers a lot - me in my cuddle duds, Ted just wore pajamas under everything, Sophie continued to wear clothing super inappropriate for such coldness. We read a lot. Watched a lot of movies. Played a lot of games. Played with friends as much as could to get out of the house. We fought a lot. I worked from home a lot. We stayed up late and slept in a lot. The house was a wreck a lot. I got not a lot of work done at all. Everything and everyone seemed to slow down a lot.

Both kids liked to help with the shoveling.

Sophie's super awesome form.

We measured snow a lot. But I'm not sure we ever got an accurate measurement because the snow drifted a lot. (This particular measurement was in the plowed snow so that doesn't count.)

My work from home.

We made a "My Special Day" plate at the Wow Factory one day. Each of us got a quarter of the plate. My section was not supposed to look like pizza. This is the plate you get to use when it's your special day of any sort - birthday, loose a tooth, report cards, etc. It's not quite what I envisioned and there's a part of me that wants to give it a second try. But I think that might be defeating the purpose. We also went to the Wow Factory another day to paint half off Christmas ornaments.

The kids decided to switch pj's one day . . . 

Then they put on masks to see if we could recognize them. 

One morning I came down to assist Sophie with breakfast. She had sugar all over her face. When I asked her if she had been eating out of the sugar bowl she said, "Yes. Just a little. Well, a couple of spoonfuls."

 Last weekend, we had our annual Regional Leadership Weekend at Oglebay. We took 95 college students - leaders and leaders in training. This was the back of my van. That didn't include most of the paper products.

I had Undo's cater Saturday night dinner which was hugely awesome - both the great food and not having to worry about it.

Susie Berg SAVED THE DAY by taking my kids to the lodge pool with her kids. They had a great time and it was something I was just not able to do.  She's my hero.

This is what meal time looked like in our cabin.

 Our stellar leaders and leaders in training. I am so proud of them!

 

We packed up Sunday afternoon in the middle of dumping snow with a lot of snow on the ground. Sophie's boots were soaked so she wore Ted's gloves on her feet to warm up on the way home.

The drive home.

 Back to snow days. One of the cool things about these days is that the kids played games on their own, especially bigger kid games that Sophie can now play and that they enjoy together.

On one of our last snow days, Aunt Lois and Uncle David came to Morgantown, got a hotel room and we swam! It was so fun. We had a debacle with the first hotel (they had drained and filled the pool the night before and it was freezing) that caused us to move hotels. It's always hilarious to be in your swimming suits and wear your snows boots to get to the room to change.

After swimming we went to Buffalo Wild Wings for dinner and some game playing.

On what we knew would be our last snow day, I took the kids and 3 friends to see Frozen for the second time. The storyline, the characters, the music - it's my new favorite! GO SEE IT! The second time was better the first. Sophie got the Elsa doll for Christmas and spent her own money to get the Ana doll before the movie. She's been singing the songs with them all week. 

Other highlights of our days off included: 

- keeping friends a few days so their mom could work

- playing at the Underdonks

- painting half price ornaments at the wow factory

- sledding at the park 

- 2 days at the church office with Grace

- bowling

I'll leave you with this:
There was quite a bit of spirited debate on social media this last week about how people should not be whining and complaining about their kids being home and not in school. There was a lot of talk about how you should enjoy every minute of being with your kids and take full advantage of the time. I won't get it, but I'll share this text I got from a friend on snow day #8.

"So, how are things over there? We are at Def-Con 4."