Frosty!

This week was a little slow-paced, which is good! Thursday we finished laying the flooring in the living room. It was still frosty out at 4:00, so Meghan and I went for a "camera walk", taking pictures of whatever struck us, including each other! Friday the frost was even more magnificent, so I snapped pictures while waiting for Meghan's bus (11:30). The sun finally peeked through then, and I snapped pictures around the house as the frost was melting.

We've decided we have enough of the flooring left over to do our bedroom (yes, we majorly over-bought), so that is the next project. We'll run it in the other direction, to provide a break between the bedroom and living room. That leaves the 2 bathrooms and the kitchen to redo and the entire floor of the house will be changed! We'll also change the inside window trim on the bedroom windows - the last ones for that as well! I had been saving a little pair of roller skates until we finished the floor. Meghan doesn't like them, says they hurt her feet. Jenna loves them! Meghan tries to steady her as she goes around the room. And Mark's remote control car finally has the dust knocked off since it has a place to run.

I did manage to get some beading done this week, finally. We got the movie WallE Sat, watched it a few times. I really like it, the female lead is the strong one, saves WallE and he saves her - not your usual Disney viewpoint!

Jenna's added a very clear "Meghan" to her vocabulary. She also likes to say "Thank you" and "No problem" when you say thank you to her! She's also starting to ask "Why?" - a phase Meghan never had! Her current favorite movie is Dumbo - Meghan has started reciting the lines the stork says when Dumbo is delivered to his mom, acting out the entire scene.

Yet Another Crazy Week

Bathing Beauties!

Sooner or later a week is going to be slow! What started out as what should be quiet did not turn out that way. Monday was quiet, got lots done at home. Tuesday was trial by fire. I noticed the oil light on the van intermittently coming on as I went to Meghan's school to volunteer. When I got done, I checked the van's oil - there wasn't ANY! There was some nice rainbows forming in the water under the van. I called a friend to see if she could get some oil for me, so I could drive it to the mechanic. When she got there, she reminded me of my AAA card, and that driving without oil could seize the engine. So, I had it towed to the mechanic. In the mean time, she picked up Jenna and Jasmine and took them to lunch. I called her when I was done, and she took us home. Thank goodness for great friends! The mechanic fixed the van that day (oil pressure switch), Mark paid for it over the phone, and got the key on his way home (too late to go and get it - Council night). We got up when Mark left for work the next morning and went to get the van on his way in (4:30am). Wed was a Children's Council meeting in the morning, volunteer in Jenna's class since I didn't the day before, and take her to her 4 year check up. She is very healthy, 3'3" and 34lb. She got her last round of shots before kindergarten - only a little whimper, and she watched the needles go in (4 shots)! What a trooper! Wed night was the first class for DCYP. Thursday Mark and I had breakfast in Hamilton, and put in half of the laminate flooring in the living room, along with paint that half of the room, and volunteer in DK. Friday was the first day I've missed Meghan's bus, so I took her to school, had class at Good Beginnings, got Meghan after school (she's out at 11 on Friday - no DK), grabbed lunch, dropped the girls at a friend's house in Woolley, and had Meghan's IEP meeting - an hour meeting turned into 2.5 hours. Sat was speech and errands while Mark stayed home to get stuff done. Yesterday we did more flooring. Today friends came over to play for the afternoon. This week I have volunteering tomorrow, a morning meeting and class Wed, finish the flooring Thur. Aykarumba! No wonder I don't get much beadwork done!

Back to Normal?

The water has mostly receded into it's regular pathways, the hills have stopped slip-sliding away, and tomorrow the girls go to school while I get to stay home for a change. Aside from putting away about 2 weeks of the girl's clothing (why is that something I always put off?) I should be free to bead myself silly.

I did get to spend about an hour outside today, taking all of the dead stuff (glads, lupine, dahlias) out and trimming back the fuchsia bushes. I'm already planning the veggie garden for next year. I took a look at it today, and pulled up some carrots. This is a saguaro carrot (not really, it just grew like that). We purchased some flexible pipe and plastic to make covers for some of the raised beds, to try and extend our oh-so-short growing season. They've already had seeds on sale here, so I scarfed up most of the ones I need - they didn't have the marine heliotrope, so I'm still looking for that. It's supposed to help attract pollinating bugs, especially for tomatoes.

This week doesn't look bad, except for Wed - potential Children's Council meeting, get back in time to take Jenna to her 4 year check up (and shots) and then possibly the Developing Capable Young People class in the evening. I took the class last year (10 weeks, Wed evening) but I'm seriously considering auditing it this year as a refresher - I'm not the only one either! Tuesday is Council, Friday is the parent class at preschool. I'll just be glad if the girls get to go to school for the entire week!

Wild but not Wet Time

I don't have any pictures to show you, but we are fine. The water never reaches us - if it got that high, the entire coast would be under. We did have an interesting time of it! The creek near here backed up into the gully that runs along Hwy 20 - over the end of the road we use to get out. The other end of the road (it's a loop) routinely gets water during flood events. Mark managed to get to work Wed, but it took him forever since he had to backtrack and go up to Concrete to cross the river and come down the South Skagit road - which usually has water too. He managed to get home the same route. Mudslides have been the worst, closing roads. The rivers have crested, but most of the problem is creeks and drainage ditches backed up with debris, which may take longer to go away. I've seen DOT trucks going around with their plows down to help clear stuff off the road.

Our neighbor and friend unfortunately has her driveway inundated with water from the creek overflow - this has never happened before! Her cars were parked at the end because there was still snow and ice on her driveway - so her car was in the water (she later managed to get it up and out of the water). The girls and I went to check on her and her granddaughters, and decided to cross the horse pasture to get to her house - 2 fence gates and a barbed wire fence later, we were there! Her husband is in the hospital, so being stuck was a problem. We drove past her house with the truck today but couldn't stop; the water was too deep. There was water coming over the hood from the wave we pushed, too deep to try and get her little car out. So today they did the same trek out that we did in, and Mark drove her to Everett (where her husband's having surgery tomorrow). The youngest girl is in-between Meghan and Jenna in age, goes to the same preschool, so she's hanging with us. The older girl is staying with a friend in Lyman. It's our first sleep-over!

Enough Snow Already!

Lets see, this week was just another normal week, right? NOT! But it was filled with a lot of joy!

We had more snow, and more snow, and more snow! The picture of Meghan is with our tribute to the Eiffel tower, the closest we could get to a snowman. The snow on top was wet enough to pack, but everything under that was pure powder. One thing in abundance this week was community spirit. Most of the neighbors helped each other dig out after the repeated snow falls. The picture on the right was from today - Mark from the end of the street (his wife has my old job) using his tractor to help scoop snow, Mark and Jenna helping Mr. Holmes dig out. Randy also had a tractor out once in a while to dig out. Hamilton doesn't have anything capable of clearing heavy snow, so I wasn't expecting town assistance. Mayor Tim surprised me with a large backhoe with a blade that cleared the street with one trip down and back. Unfortunately, it pushed the snow across the driveways, so everyone was helping to dig out from that. It definitely helped make the street drivable again for the people without 4 wheel drive.

Jenna's birthday was relaxed - that's her licking the bowl. She wanted a confetti cake. The girl's had a great Christmas, opening everything in a very short period of time! Our neighbor joined us for Christmas dinner. We made it into Mount Vernon for speech Sat, snagged some after-holiday stuff at Home Depot and came home again. We've managed to get out every 3-4 days so the cabin fever isn't too bad. Mark officially has work tomorrow. They don't work if it snows, and he doesn't get paid if they don't work, so we're glad he's working again. It was nice to have him home though.

Winter Wonderland

Well, another 2 weeks have gone by, and I took almost 250 pictures in 14 days! That took a bit of sorting through! We went to the Lights of Christmas, Lucas' party at Jungle Playland, the kids played at Kendra's since they didn't have Christmas teas at school, Jenna's party at the Children's Museum and SNOW, SNOW, SNOW!!! We have had 4-5 times as much snow as we usually get all winter in just the past week, and they are still calling for more. Mark worked Tuesday last week, hasn't worked since - that's also the last day the kids had school! They're scheduled off this week anyway, but missed 4 out of 5 days the last week. Mark doesn't get paid if they don't work, so thank goodness he hadn't taken vacation yet - he's using that up, but it's only 8 hours instead of the usual 10-12 he normally works. The poor van gets unburied just to get covered again. We've had strong winds that created drifts, especially since it was so cold the snow is powder. The wood stove has been going constantly for almost 2 weeks - it's a balmy (if slightly staticy) 72-80 inside the house, while outside it's been into the single digits. The forecast is lower 40's around Christmas - then more snow! The top picture is Meghan trying to walk across the front yard - it's gotten deeper since then. Next is one of her rock star positions - she's really into air guitar. Jenna's pic is from her party (Thanks, Sue), blowing out candles that Mark eventually helped her with. It seems impossible that Jenna turns 4 tomorrow - they are both growing so quickly. I'm really trying to slow down and savor every moment with them. I especially love their laughter - it's the best thing in the world for anything that ails you!

Tis the Season

Well, the tree is up and decorated, the lights are up for outside, the boxes to be shipped are ready to go, and the Christmas cards are almost done! Now I get to get caught up on the chores which have not gotten done, and get ready for Jenna's birthday party.

The Boy Scout popcorn is pretty much over now (thank goodness!). I made the last trip to Everett to "close out" Thursday. As I'm going down the road, I can hear the window cracking! We had a nice circular crack from a rock hit, and it was really cold that morning - the thermal shock from cold outside and hot inside (Mark had turned on the defroster full blast for me) did it in. Fortunately it just split sideways, not enough to impair vision. We got it replaced on Friday. The picture of Jenna is from the 2 hours we spent at McDonald's waiting for the van. We did get a car to use, but I really didn't have many errands to run, and there they could play while I got things done, like cut apart all the school pictures!

The picture of Meghan is from today. We were watching Kung Fu Panda, and she decided to spear her french fries. She used a paint brush handle to do the spearing - I think it was a chop stick thing.