::winter wallop::

I just had to laugh when I saw the title that the news channels were giving to our big storm this weekend. "Winter wallop"? Quite the alliteration.
But it was a big storm, and pretty amazing. It started snowing at about 9PM last night, and it just started slow and subtly. By the time we woke up in the morning at about 8AM there was about a two foot drift up against our sliding glass door. There was lots of fast wind last night, so we had some interesting snow distribution.

Church was cancelled last night, so we were able to be pleased by the snow instead of bummed because we were going to have to go out in it.
Kris and Max went out to start shoveling.

Check out the cars!!


Check out what was hanging off the roof. It kind of feels like we're living in a canyon or a cave--something that nature has carved over time.

And check out the drifts on the neighbors houses. I think they're super interesting looking, especially how the chimney in the house on the left has a blank circle all around it. They really look like frosted gingerbread houses, don't they?

Sul didn't like it. I think he liked it at first, but when he realized how deep it was he was not excited anymore. Here's what happened when I called him to come up on the deck so I could take a picture of him (from inside of course).




He had to build up extreme velocity just to get over the snow, and that's after Max had already blazed a trail for him.
He was very bummed when I didn't let him in.


Kris thought that the snow on the trampoline looked like it was pretty shallow, so I guess he threw Max onto it headfirst. And I guess he disappeared into the depths. Turns out there was tons of snow on the tramp. It just looked shallow because the mat was all bowed low, nearly touching the ground. Good thing Max is a good sport.

Since Max was dying to sled, and there was no way the cars were leaving the driveway, Kris set up a little sledding situation on the back deck.

He made some steps out of the recycling bins, and some sort of ramp off the side.

Recipe for disaster unless dad is holding the sled tight. He survived though, luckily.



Weeeeeeeee.......

Then Max got freezing and came in and poor Kris stayed out for another hour and a half just shoveling shoveling and shoveling. Good thing he's been working out. I think this will count for his workout for the next week.
And Max warmed up.

Yay for hot chocolate and snow and cheery mugs and lazy days. And extra yay for warm houses that keep us dry. I like those.

::today::

Today we've got some nasty weather. Slick snow fell all morning, and at some point here it's supposed to be turning to rain--lots of rain.
Kris called me after he made it to work and he said the roads were so slippery. It took him over an hour to get to work when it normally takes about twenty minutes. I'm hoping not to leave anytime soon, though of course school isn't canceled, which is a bummer. I think snow should equal closed school all the time.

I do have lights on my tree, as you can see in the picture. Which means that we did get the tree down from the attic (I don't think it really counts as an attic, but that's ok. It's mostly exposed insulation), and it also means that we moved furniture out of the living room to make room for the tree. We still have to put the ornaments on though. I just got the lights done last night after an emergency trip to target because at least four of my light strings were totally dead. Argh. And then they were out of the cheap lights so I had to settle for less of the expensive lights. Oh well, it's got lights. That's what matters. Hopefull we'll be putting ornaments on today.

And lastly, I thought I was sparing in the addition of bubble bath this morning, but:

To the little man's delight, I guess I wasn't sparing enough. The jets take the bubble bath over the top. (literally) (keep in mind this is a big deep tub--really the only thing in our house that isn't tiny--and the bubbles are spilling over the top and sides, YIKES).
He's been enjoying a long winter's bath. I'm scared to see how the bathroom is doing. Wish me luck.

::stink, stank, stunk::

So here I am, back to the blog. I'm almost caught up with all the bunches of stuff (like the 30 loads of laundry for example) that were waiting for me to get done while I was out of town for three weeks. Almost.
So what really stinks right now is that it's snowing. And it snowed all night. We've gotten something like eight or ten inches of snow. I'm bummed because when I got back in town all the snow had melted and we could actually walk on the sidewalks. So we got to be outside for a bit. But now it's back to snow. I know spring will have to come sometime, I just don't know when!

But speaking of stinky, when Kris picked up Sultan from the "dog hotel" we realized there was a problem. He really really stank. Luckily he's not a super stinky dog normally (ok, some of you with sensitive noses may disagree, but this is my opinion) Some dogs just stink all the time, and he's not like that.
Except for this time. It was terrible. And it's super expensive to get him groomed out here. It used to cost us about half what they charge out here when we lived in MO.
So anyway, Kris took matters into his own hands, thank goodness. He donned all his dental protection and went for it in the bathtub.

Poor Sul looks pretty relaxed here, but in reality this is how he felt in the tub:

If I saw any other animal making this face I'd run far far away, but sweet Sul is much to nice to ever try to do anything mean.



All this fun didn't help the little boy down the hall that was supposed to be in bed.

Finally the fuzzy guy got all washed and clean and went to sleep on his bed and dry off. I'm so glad Kris is brave and strong and took care of the stink. Because I'm not sure if I would've lived any longer with it. And Sul is so strong it's hard for me to do stuff like wash him in the tub.

Even though he's cute and still tries to lick you while being bathed.

When we got home there were piles of mail of course. Max had several birthday cards as well as a package from Uncle Kelly and Aunt Lechelle. It was a cool molding kit with different colored clays. We were supposed to make a couple of shapes that would be refrigerator magnets. Max was super excited, so we did it.

They turned out cute and he enjoyed it.
But his favorite part was taking all the leftover stuff and mashing it together. He played with that stuff the entire rest of the day and the next as well. By the end it just looked gross.

He especially liked working with it on the radiator in front of the window for some reason.



It finally dried up and I talked him into letting me throw it out. But what fun in the meantime!

Otherwise we've just been cleaning up and trying to get things back in order after the trip.
I have a bunch of pictures and stuff to post from the trip and visits. I hope nobody will mind reading about things pretty long after the event. I just couldn't keep up. I like to take pictures too much, and then it takes me a while to work on them and decide which ones to post. That's always hard for me.

So look for some more fun stuff as soon as I can get slightly caught up with life the universe and everything.

::on a wintry day::

On a cold wintry snowy blustery day like today we need something filling, yummy and comforting for dinner.
Like this:

Grilled cheese sandwiches (made as healthy as possible by using wheat bread--my dad's recipe--shredded light cheese and just a touch of butter spread)
and this:

Tomato and roasted red pepper soup (trader joe's). Mmmmm, this stuff is seriously scrumptious. And good for you. It's my alltime favorite soup (behind my mom's broccoli soup).
We like to dip our sandwiches in the soup and feel our bellies with warm deliciousness. I think right now this is one of my favorite meals. Uncomplicated and delicous.
I'm glad we live in this day and age when we're not limited to only eating foods that are in season right where we live. I know it's best to eat what's in season, but I'm sure glad that somebody in California can grow some delicious (pink) oranges and send them out east here for me to eat because I love them!

Max kept me company in the kitchen while I got stuff ready. The way he deals with the fact that I don't let him play video games all day is by reading the little books that come along in the cases. Then he asks me all sorts of strange questions about what they say and why. Anyway that's what he's doing here.

Anybody out there in blogland have a favorite winter dinner?

::my b-day::

OLD NEWS!: This is one of the old posts I'm putting up, and cheating and sticking it back where it goes chronologically.

My birthday was great!
Max and Kris worked hard on a yummy cake.




These days in RI it gets dark SO early. Like at four o clock. It's kind of crazy.
Anyway, it was a nice night. Max helped me with my presents of course.

He helped dad wrap them up, and he helped me unwrap them.

Kris got me some books I really wanted, including this one:

It's great.
And Max picked out a special shirt just for me from Target--green, with an attached stripey scarf. He was really excited when I wore it. Kris said he was very specific about what he wanted when they were shopping. I think that's so cute.

I'm a dork I know.


And of course, we ended it all with the delicious cake and ice cream. Complete with candle wax. Yum.

::snow day::

This is the second sunday in a row in which our church services have been canceled because of snow fall.

The part of town that our meeting house is in has very narrow roads that don't get plowed well at all. And our largest parking lot (which is still really tiny) is all gravel, which makes it tough to plow or shovel.
Truthfully, none of the city seems to get plowed very well, which makes driving anywhere in a show storm pretty treacherous.

So we're hanging out together. Looking at photos, watching a little Rogers & Hammerstein and staying warm.
Here's a picture of the fire house, as per my dad's request on my last snowy post.

Stay warm everybody!

::frigid outing pt 2::

......after we got done freezing at the crazy graffiti for park we hopped back in the car and headed over to check out another area. It was still cold over there.
We parked by one of the oldest lighthouses in the US. Now I can't remember of course--maybe it was the 3rd oldest? Anyway it was cool. And I got a picture of it just as the light flashed at us. Can you see it?

Max spent some time jumping off rocks. That was fine with me because it kept him away from the edge of the land, at least momentarily.

He is such a boy.

And then of course he went over to the edge. Think it was just to bug me? Take a look at the expression on his face.

Stinker.
So as you can see there's the edge of the land and then there's the ocean. In between there were a whole bunch of rocks on a slope. And it was cold and icy. So of course we went down there. Well, the boys went down there first.



It was really pretty.



Some of the rocks were pretty icy. Max did a pretty good job, but he definitely needed some assistance.

Wow, in that picture the ocean almost looks like ice itself. It was so grey.

I wasn't really planning on going down there, but once they got down to the bottom they started calling me. And although neither Grant nor I wanted to go, we did.


I watched my feet very carefully so I wouldn't end up in the ocean.

It was already cold enough. Falling in the ocean really would've bummed me out.

There were some pretty amazing icicles down there. It looked like there were all these little streams flowing down to the water and then suddenly it got super cold and they all just froze.

Kris says that's not what happened though. But it looks like it to me. It was really beautiful.
Melissa took a picture of Kris and I. While we were posing, Max did his best to break through some ice and fall in the water. Chad somehow kept him upright with the hand that wasn't holding Grant. Impressive daddy skills there.

But right after that Max finally succeeded in cracking some ice. (Melissa captured this moment)

See the ice cracking under his feet? Kris's arms are reaching out to grab him....but he did end up dunking both hands in the freezing water. And he got the bottoms of his jeans pretty wet Brrr. And somehow he still cried when we said it was time to go up and leave. I think kids must be made of teflon.
And so then we went home. It was a fun freezing adventure. I think we're going to go back when it's not quite so cold.