Wednesday: snow day

We did end up with a snow day today!  I had to go out several times today and the roads really weren't very good.  They also seemed to be worse this evening as they were icy near intersections.  I'm expecting school tomorrow (and most forecasts say a low chance of a closure), but wouldn't be overly surprised if there isn't school.  I don't think anyone is expecting school on Friday due to cold, so it'll be a really short week.

Anyway, Ben stayed home so that was nice.  I had an easier day than otherwise, but still had work and errands that needed to be done.  

One errand included a vet appointment, and it seemed like this vet was telling me very different things than previous vets.  Last year Horizon's weight had stayed the same and the vet was happy enough with that.  This year he lost a little (very little) weight and the vet was quite sure that he needed to lose quite a bit of weight.  We also have a cat that regularly throws up.  We mention it every year, and have tried a few things to combat it but nothing seems to change.  In the past it has just been ok.  This year she was very worried about it.  She wanted the cats to have a complete blood panel workup and said that she suggests doing this every year with older cats...which would over triple today's vet bill.  Um...no.  She also suggested a few other things to change that involve buying some products, but at $30 it might be something we do.  So after this annoying appointment I got home and the plow had gone through and I was rather grumpy.

I did enjoy Joshua's message to me on his math work from yesterday though.  I read somewhere that adults killed 6-7, and I'm not sad about it.  (Please ignore the wrong answer.)

Tuesday: snow day (#1?)

One of the kids' chores today was to shovel the end of the driveway after the plow came through.  So what happens?  The plow came through at 7am and I was able snow blow it away.  It was still light and fluffy so it worked well.  The kids went sledding after I got home from work, so they still got outside even though it's rather cold.

I got a text with this picture while at work.  The kids didn't get into too many shenanigans, but definitely some.

I'm really tired.

There's a high chance of a snow day tomorrow.  I personally think there's a high chance on Friday too.  We'll see!

Monday: snow storm

It was an interesting snow storm today.

The kids had ortho appointments this morning.  I was a bit annoyed at myself for making the appointments, but in a non-snowstorm it would have been the right choice.  Anyway, based on appointment times and whatnot I expected to be there for about 1.5hrs.

Twenty minutes later, we were leaving.  They got both kids in at the same time and Isaac's appointment didn't take an hour as I was told.  It was rather exciting.

The roads weren't as bad as I thought, but there weren't many people out.  There was one gust of wind that caused very white out conditions, but it passed quickly.  (The highways were much, much worse.  Due to accidents, they were closed for a significant portion of the day.)

The original plan had been to have Ben take my car to work after the ortho appointments, but he managed to move all of his meetings on-line.  Most people took the "do not travel" advisory seriously and worked from home.

At 5pm, all the local schools EXCEPT OURS had been canceled.  It's a situation where you know the school will cancel, but they haven't yet.  What if they decide not to!?!  They did cancel.  Phew.

The day as a whole was nice.  The kids played some, read some, worked some.  I actually got many of my normal chores completed since the kids were well occupied.

I made naan for dinner, but didn't decide to do so until 3pm.  Usually I take Brad out of the refrigerator in the morning so it has some time to wake up.  Instead I made the naan dough and had it cuddle between Isaac's legs and under some blankets to warm up just a little.  I didn't need it to warm up much, but sitting on the counter would be cold.

Sunday: snow

We're in the middle of a snow storm!  The kids already didn't have school tomorrow, but most schools are closed.  We do have some ortho appointments in the morning.  I have a small hope that they'll cancel the appointments, but I kind of doubt it.

Saturday: breakfast

I went to Grandville for breakfast with a friend this morning.  The roads were....not great.  We had even talked yesterday that we'd decide at the last minute, but thought that everything would be ok.  It wasn't.  ...but at the same time,  we got there and back ok.  This was my fourth meal with friends this week - a huge change from last week when I didn't eat with anyone.  

Friday

After a lovely breakfast with a friend, I started Operation: Clean the House - entry closet.  I'm really excited about a little space for once.  I cleaned the top two shelves.

I am getting rid of the puppy hat.  Joshua was so small and cute.

Ben and Isaac went to a magic thing.  Their normal place closed, so they were going to a place that was farther away and earlier, so they didn't have dinner with us.  Joshua and I had pasta - tonight's shape was elbows.

Our grad school friends met on-line in the evening in our bi-weekly meet up.  My computer would not behave.  Either I could hear but not talk or talk but not hear or it was on my phone which is not ideal.  I tried several different things and made a lot of annoyed faces and finally gave up and didn't use headphones.  Ben came home and gave me a kid's pair of corded headphones which worked but they were not very comfortable.  We'll get it fixed later, but at least there were some solutions.

Oh!  I also found a picture of Isaac on the school Facebook site.  It looks like he's having a lot of fun, but he did not tell me about it after school.

Wednesday: New Year's Eve

Today was just a stick around the house day.  It was cool, so we didn't do as much outside.  We played several games, I took a walk with the boys, and we got in the pool/hot tub in the afternoon.

During our walk we saw this pretty tree and a pencil cactus.  We may have also made sure the boat was protected by toy army men.

Joshua enjoyed jumping in the pool if someone counted for him (1-2-3!)  So we did a lot of 1-2-tree! to try and trick him.  Most of the time he caught it, but sometimes we got him.  He also enjoyed being pushed in, as long as he was in his swimsuit.  (I think he pushed Isaac in on the first day as Isaac was drying off, so that was very unexpected and resulted in a very wet towel.)

While the pool was heated, it was also rather cold.  I spent most of my water time in the hot tub.

After a nice dinner, six of us played hand and foot.  Jamie and I got really far ahead on the first hand, and it set the tone...at least for us.  We were having a great time!  Isaac and Cheryl almost caught up by the end of the game and Ben and Ashlyn...well, they were good sports.

While we were playing the game, Joshua helped Larry build the Star Trek Lego shuttle pod.  We have a video, which still requires editing, but it was cute.  Joshua did a very nice job "teaching" Grandpa how to put it together and was very encouraging.

Everyone managed to stay up until midnight - I think this is the first time either of the kids (have been allowed) to stay up.  Joshua said it was one of his best parts of the trip, but there wasn't anything all that special.  We watched the ball drop, we clinked glasses, and we went to bed.