FEBZILLA

Hola! (subject line phrase coined by my friend Julie Berry...)

Yep, we're here... and yes, it's snowing.  Again!

I'M SO HAPPY THAT WE HAVE ELECTRICITY.
Should I say that again?
5 more times?? Ha.  It's been ultra-cold, and the snow is powdery for the moment.  This storm started last night and is supposed to continue through the night tonight.

SNOW DAYS.  Our kids haven't had a full week of school for four weeks!  Martin Luther King Jr. Day was Monday, Jan. 19, giving us a 4-day week.

Mound closest is our poor rhododendron plant :(

The next week was the first Big Storm (24 inches at our house): 2 snow days made it a 3-day week.

Last week was another Big Storm (18 inches)...most school districts took 2 days off, but we only had 1 day off, making that a 4-day week for us.

BAD, BAD icicles!

And now this storm!  For sure today makes a 4th snow day off from school this winter.  (Hoping we can dig out in time so they can go to school tomorrow, but it hasn't slowed down yet...)  Teresa is happy enough about that, since the seniors do not have to make up the days.  Kara, however, looks at the calendar and sees that now, our "last day of school" has been bumped around the weekend, into the next week of June!  The kids will go to school through June 22 now. Ugh!

Bentley at work

BENTLEY SHOUT-OUT.  See these awesome photos of snowflakes?  They're from the Internet, but I'm thanking Wilson Bentley, a man passionate about snow and nature.  Born just weeks before President Lincoln was assasinated, he perfected a process of taking pictures of snowflakes: catching flakes on black velvet in such a way that their images could be captured before they melted.


RECITAL.

Kara & her friend Isabel

Kara did great on her piano recital last Saturday!
She had been practicing "Don't Stop Believing" by Journey like crazy, and she did really well on it.  It's so fun when our kids latch onto 80's songs!  That was 1981.  I'm sure she'd play it for you over the phone or something, if you asked her to :)

Well, just checking in.  We're still alive and we still have power :) :) :) :) :) :)  I'm so happy about that, I may just...go out and shovel!

Kari