Snow!- February 11-14

It only happens once every few years, so when there is a chance of snow, it's a big deal.  You might remember that while I was in China, a quarter inch shut down the state for 2 days.  Well, this next storm was going to be the BIG one.  So as soon as a weather forecaster said "up to 10 inches" (ha!), they immediately dismissed schools early and cancelled for the rest of the week.  (I'm not kidding.)

Well, we did get a little snow.  On the first day, it snowed about two inches but as very warm and wet.  I dragged the kids out to Kite Hill.  Don't let June's happy face fool you.  She cried the whole time.  That girl hates snow.  She was only happy once she hid under a row of pine trees and was joined by Maddie to pretend the were fairies.  Georgie liked kicking down a huge snow wall that was not intended to be kicked down.  She then got to help that little boy rebuild it.  Then we built a snowman.  Henry couldn't be pulled away from sledding to be in our picture.

The next day, the temperature dropped considerably (actually below 35) and since we didn't get the 10 inches of snow, maybe we'd get ice!  And power outages!  We all cooked a bunch of food and put the milk in the garage (so we wouldn't have to open the refrigerator), but the ice didn't come.  We did get an earthquake (and not just from big pregnant me sledding down a hill.)  It was a 3.2 earthquake and really rounded out our week of natural disasters well.

Miss Kerri is always coming up with something fun and on the 4th day of being snowed in, she hatched up a progressive scavenger hunt.  Each family came up with their own hunt and prize.

Our hunt led to a craft of flour paints that rose when you cooked then in the microwave.

It was fun for a few minutes. The older boys liked the hunts. June and Andy just wanted to be left alone to talk about Pokemon.  Christopher only wanted to be where John was and Georgie cried that no one was inviting her to do everything with them.

The frigid weather broke and I took the chance to shovel the wet snow off the driveway before it froze into solid ice.  Nothing makes me feel more alive than shoveling snow.  Except in this case I had to change into a short-sleeve shirt so not to die from heat exhaustion.  

Since school was out for days before Valentine's Day, all the kids had plenty of time to work on their cards.  We got an email from Mac's mom concerning Mac's valentine.  It says "Mac June Married."  Up until that moment, June said she was going to marry Jayson, but now she was giving Mac serious consideration.  June wrote special notes to each of her classmates that were hilarious.  For example:

"Dear Araya, I like your boots.  Love June."

"Dear Nate, You sit on the purple circle and purple is my favorite color.  Love June."

And the best:

"Dear Mrs. Upchurch, You are pretty

old.  Love June."

Lucky for June Mrs. Upchurch has a good sense of humor.

On Valentine's Day we did venture out to buy our traditional Bojangles BoBerry biscuits.  We brought home extras for Maddie and Katie.