So I know I said I wasn't going to post again til after we moved, but we had a huge storm and some pictures to go with and Josh is studying and I'm tired of working (the kind of work that stay at home moms do when they are moving soon and soon to be selling their stove/oven and dryer...so the same kind of work I always do just adding in the packing;).
So last Friday we got a snow storm. We woke up to rain in the morning. Josh said he had heard it raining as early as 4:30. There had been a strong north wind all night long, so it was freezing in our bedroom...Neither of us wanted to get up. And yes, as usual, that was the morning Josh finally took out the air conditioners. It always has to get real hot before we get them in and real cold before we take them out. The day before I had spent all day picking the squash, gourd, pumpkins (a 50 ft x 50 ft garden worth) and 9-50ft rows of beans. It took me all day and several trips to the house because Lu Lu had to go potty. By evening I was wiped and Josh (after picking apples at a house in New Salem) helped me pick the last row and bring all our harvest to the house. It was late, so we skipped the popcorn.
By the time we finished breakfast, it was already snowing outside, and Josh went out to pick the popcorn in the snowing/sloshy blizzard. He came back in to get gloves. He picked about half and decided to quit because his box was full and he was covered in snow and cold.
It snowed all day long and was windy. Josh went out a few times to knock snow off the trees that had branches over the house. He also had to cut a branch off a tree that was hanging on our power line. He cut it off with our little tiny tree pruners. We had taken our chainsaw and generator to Mom and Dad's the weekend before...Bad Idea. The kids also went outside to play for a while in the snow. They were super excited to have the first snow. It was pretty cold out though and they didn't last long. Johnny lasted longer than Lu Lu. We ended up getting around a foot of snow.
All day we canned apple sauce out of those apples Josh picked. It turned out really well. It was so cold in the house that the furnace was even running even though the kitchen was more than warm. By the time we were canning the last batch and trying to get supper cooking, the power was starting to flicker. It went out for a while, but came back on so we could finish our cooking and eating. We made plans to all sleep in the living room. The kids got all their bed stuff out and had fun playing "night games" with Daddy in the dark. The electricity was working at this point, we just weren't using it.:) Since the power was on and hadn't flickered in a while we decided to watch a movie with the kids. (Cars and Oceans were the only two not packed and since we just watched Oceans a couple weeks ago...Cars was the choice.) We were about 5 minutes into the movie when disappointment hit our house like the blackness of the western prairie on a cloudy night. Boy was it dark! Johnny and Lu Lu were very disappointed that they couldn't finish their movie, so Josh promised them that whenever the power came back on (even if in the middle of the night) we could finish the movie. Well guess what? The power did come back on. But not in the middle of the night. We were almost asleep (at least I was) when it turned on. Of course the tv turned on by itself, so the kids had to finish their movie. It was only a little after 9, but I couldn't force my body off the comfy air mattress to watch the movie with the kids. Josh snuggled with the kids on the floor and watched it with them. We decided to try to have movie nights and sleepovers in the living room more often. But next time we'll start the movie sooner, so the kids aren't up til after 11...ooops.
Okay, so I'll start uploading those pictures now...
Playing outside during the storm
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| Too cold. Need to come in |
Josh was worried that the kids' snow coats was all packed. I hate to say it, but the only one who will fit into a snow coat is Jerry. Johnny and Lu Lu were growing out of their's last spring. Jerry's the only lucky one with a hand me down coming.:) Hopefully this was the only day we are going to use snow gear for a while, so I can get a chance to go shopping.:)
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| Johnny making snow angels |
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| Slumber party set up |
Assessing the damages...
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| This big branch landed on the entry way roof when Josh was getting ready to go shake snow off the trees. It was pretty loud. |
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| Cedar spent the weekend inside |
Mud after the storm. It was gorgeous on Sunday, so we spent some time playing in the mud and snow. Josh and John also worked on moving out some of the broken branches. Jeremiah doesn't have rubber boots, so as you can imagine, he was a little cold and wet by the time we went inside for baths. As you can imagine, I've been doing laundry everyday, so the kids can wear their outside stuff again the next day. I'll be happy when we are dry again.
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| Jerry's first mud experience |
One of the things we'll miss about living in New Salem is the great mud puddles in the driveway. They are fun to play in and you usually don't get stuck. I put Jerry's boots on and sent him out the door thinking that Josh was still right out in the yard. When I came out a couple minutes later Josh was just getting back from bringing brush down and asked me what happened to Jerry's face. I'm not sure...We found out later when he did it again, faceplanting in the mud.:) He had a blast doing his little Jerry shuffle (a dance he does when we're all dancing in the kitchen) in the mud puddles making the water splash.
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| Snowball fight |
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| Baby Kitties. Dumbo showed the kids where her kitties were last Thursday (we thought she had lost them all). During the storm she moved them up to the house. Today they were gone again. Hopefully we can find them again. |
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| hauling branches...What a mess. We thought we had it bad until we went to church on Saturday night. There are branches (big ones) down all over town. Some young trees the city had planted around the time we moved here were just completely snapped off. |
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| Johnny's working hard. I got of picture of the smallest branch he carried. All of the other ones were much bigger than this. |
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| What snowy day would be complete without a snowman? By this time Jerry was freezing a ready to go in, but he was intrigued enough to not be crabby while the big kids made their snowmen. |
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| Playing with Daddy, while Daddy pretends to sleep. He was like the sleeping giant, waiting to attack the kids when they got to close. |
We played outside in the mud again today and moved a few more small branches to the brush pile. While we were down there I saw Faye, our neighbor. She and Don are the ones who did our chores when we were gone for the weekend. Don has been on hospice care with bone cancer. She said he's in heaven now. We're sad to see him gone and will miss him. It was hard not seeing him working in the garden this summer. He was in a lot of pain, so we are glad that he can be with Jesus now. Johnny has a hard time with it and he says he doesn't like heaven. Oh well, maybe he'll understand better when he's older. Johnny really likes Don and Faye and has been missing seeing Don all summer too.
Today was a Monday by the way. A long one. Josh said he had a long day at work and thought it odd to have a long day at home. He says his days at home are never long enough. I know it sounds funny now, but none of these events were funny to me at the time. Here's just a snapshot of a few things that made my Monday seem long:
- Jerry dug in the dirt my pots so many times that I moved the one he was digging in into my bedroom.
- I found that Lu Lu had broken one of John's kid's carnival toys from the church fall dinner on Sunday. After throwing it away I hear crying and find that Johnny and Lu Lu were fighting over Lu Lu's necklace from the carnival and broke that. I told them that they were even now.
- Johnny couldn't fall asleep at naptime. He had 3 cups of water for lunch and had to go potty 3 times before I said he could just stay up.
- After telling the kids it was time to go inside after playing in the mud, it was trying to get Jerry's boots off at the porch when I felt mud splashing all over my back...Thanks Johnny!
- I took off Jerry's pants, socks, and boot off and ran into the house to throw them in the wash machine. When I came back outside, he was running to the mud puddles in just his diaper and t-shirt.
- Jerry got out of the tub and I got him dress. I got John into the shower and ran to the entry to close the door, so Jerry wouldn't go back out into the mud....When I came back to the bathroom, Jerry was down to his elbows in toilet water. I guess I closed the wrong door. Needless to say, he got another shower.
- The list could go on, but Josh was commenting on how long this post is getting.:) My day was immediately lightened as soon as Josh got home. And I can now laugh at what the kids did today.
I better go so I can watch Me tv with Josh. It's his wind down time from studying. He's getting tired of studying and is ready to take the test.
I suppose we'll have more muddy fun tomorrow since the snow isn't even quite melted yet.
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