Happy Valentine's Day!

 Here are the beautiful flowers Mom and
Dad sent us!  Aren't they just lovely?  They brighten up this wintry day.  We arrived back in Delaware, and spent all morning grocery shopping, since we had nothing left that wasn't spoiled.  So now we are all set up for the week and is all we have to do is tons of laundry and picking up!

Thank you once again for the lovely flowers, and I hope your Valentine's Day was sweet!

S'More (s) and S'More Snow!

We took lemons and made lemonade here last night. (I don't mean literally!  I mean we made the best of a not-so-great situation)  Here are the children by the blazing fire roasting their marshmallows and enjoying S'mores.  Fortunately, I had the fixin's in the pantry!  As s'more snow fell, we played Boggle, Yahtzee, and Lord of the Rings Monopoly...It was a game marathon!
Overnight we had another 9" or so; I guess the area up near Manassas was hit with more than 15 inches.  This has really been phenomenal.  The more amazing thing is that this morning on Yahoo! News there was an article on "How Global Warming Produces Blizzards".  Go figure!  I think this falls under the heading, "If you're going to tell a lie, tell a whopper!"

You might be able to see the birdbath in this photo.  It has at least 36" of snow on it.  The snow is drifting quite a lot.  Our bar-b-que and deck chairs are completely covered under a large drift of snow which must be nearly 5'.  The wind is gusting up to about 50 mph.

Well, the game marathon continues here.  E. and S. and Sarah's friend Clare are in serious competition.  African Lion and Bugle Boy are even having a Boggle contest...they are doing pretty well, too!  African Lion had the words "quit" and "rim", which he wrote out himself and Bugle Boy came up with "bad" and "rle" (that's rally, spelled Matthew style).  Weirdly enough, African Lion can spell anything and Bugle Boy can't spell much.  Another strange coincidence?  Everything African Lion is good at, Bugle Boy isn't and vice versa.  It is very odd.  Mad Muncher participated in the Monopoly challenge and also played a mean game of Candy Land.  I hope tomorrow they can go outside to play, but really right now it is much too windy and cold. Not much else to do here, so I'll post again later!

Snow photos!

We were slammed with an incredible winter blizzard!  The snow started falling on Friday morning and by Saturday afternoon we had about 2 feet on the ground.  Gusting winds and falling trees caused the power to go out at our house early Fri. a.m..  What was apparently the lone repair truck in the state of Delaware began working and our power was reconnected on...wait for it....MONDAY!  Here's Sweetie shoveling us out with Dad and assistants on Sunday so we could slowly 4-wheel-drive ourselves to a local hotel.  Of course, the kids thought it was a great adventure!

Although the house was getting very chilly by this time, we all had a
delicious hearty breakfast of hot cocoa and scrambled eggs
with bacon and sausage dice that Chef Dad managed to grill in the garage.
We even had hot coffee!  I had an old teakettle. Actually it was cheap and new, but the whistler broke almost as soon as I started to use it, causing a serious fire hazard, since Sweetie WILL keep putting the kettle on for tea and then forget about it if it doesn't whistle.  SOOOO, I ordered a new Revereware kettle.  This was very serendipitious timing, for I now had an OLD kettle to use on the bar-b-que...see how things work out for the best??  So between the old kettle and the French press coffee maker, we were able to make coffee and even share a cup with our new neighbor, who was also cooking on his bar-b-que in his garage. 

It was very courageous of me to put this photo up...a rather disheveled garage and a carton of milk on the...ahem...garbage can????  But the men (there's Dad and helper on duty) all did a great job both with the grilling and with the fumigating of the garage.  Bugle Boy came inside to give me a thrilling account of spiders falling on the hot coals from the ceiling and "they got very warm and then died!"  African Lion just wanted to be sure that there was indeed sausage cooking in the eggs, because, he informs me, he is a carnivore and only eats meat.  (Last week, he was a wombat and only ate vegetables and fruit).

We have now completely thrown in the towel and headed back to Virginia.  "THEY" are calling for another 8-10" here and up to another 20" in the D.C. area and another 8" in Delaware tomorrow.  So it's a very good thing that we don't need to go back until next Sunday or Monday (probably Sunday, as there is more snow in the forecast for Monday).  It has been a winter to remember..or maybe to forget, as quickly as possible!

"If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?"  Percy Bysshe Shelley

Suddenly Winter

By the miracle of modern technology, it is suddenly winter!  I haven't posted for over six months!  Now, with a huge BLIZZARD approaching, I thought I'd have a few days to post.  We're supposed to get over 22 inches of snow here on the coast, and over 30 inches in Virginia.  Winds are predicted to gust up to 60 mph, so this is going to be a serious blizzard.  We're all hunkered down here and looking forward to a few white days.  It has already begun flurrying outside, and once it really starts to snow, we'll get some pictures.  We know you need to see snow while you are tanning your pelts on the beaches!
I also updated the books I have read since the first of the year, and I added a new section so you can see what I'm reading aloud to the children. We have been doing a wonderful snow/ice study; it's perfect for this time of year! Here are a few of the books we have been reading, several others already were returned to the library!

Will post again soon with  snow pics!