Ready For Spring!

So I survived two weeks non stop on my own without Tom support. But it won't last long. He just returned from LA, and he is off to speak at a conference in New Orleans next week. I was just glad he was able to get back home since we were spared the big nasty snow storm. We did have hurricane level wind and flurries, and they did cancel flights in the morning in and out of BWI because of the high wind. He was scheduled for an evening return, so the weather calmed down by then. Of course, he was not too worried about being trapped in LA. Much better weather than here on the East Coast! And he visited with my brother Mike and had a chance to go out to dinner with him a couple of times. Plus a trip to wine country near Santa Barbara over the weekend.
While he was sipping merlot last Saturday, Allison and I were singing with the GS choir at International Day.

This week I had my girl scouts over for a planning meeting for an up all night event next weekend-Columbia Mall Sleep In(which is a misnomer since nobody sleeps). We girl scouts take over the entire mall and put on programs for Junior girl scouts. My troop is presenting a Sports Sampler badge. We also invited another Troop to assist, so their leader was able to drop by and get an orientation to the program following our meeting on Friday night. We also managed to get Allison to her piano lesson earlier Friday night so it made for a shorter day. Thank goodness. I was a bit wore out from volunteering to go into work in the morning, as well as attending a baby shower in the afternoon(also at work), then running lots of errands, picking up Scott from school, dropping in to the school fair before rushing home to set up and clean up for the girl scout meeting! I had to pick up Scott's scout shirt from the dry cleaner(they sewed on all his new patches) and I was searching for the best bargain for frosting for his cub scout cake.

Speaking of cake contests, Scott once again came home with a prize for his cake! This year's theme was the 100th Birthday celebration of scouting. Scott was shooting for the "tallest cake" category, and we planned out a mutli layered birthday cake. We decorated the cake in blue and gold frosting and added chocolate candies that we made in a Boy Scout emblem mold that I bought at the scout store. We even found a cookie cutter in the shape of an eagle and added cookies to the cake decorations. After we set up his cake at the award ceremony, we knew immediately that he had won for the tallest cake. One other boy attempted the tall cake category, but his toppled before getting to the event. Rather than the tallest cake award, Scott ended up taking the "Scout's Choice Award". The boy scouts voted for their favorite cake, and it was Scott's! So since he could only win one award, they found another cake almost as tall. I thought for sure Scott was guaranteed a win, at least for "Most Frosting". I actually think they came up with that category from one of Scott's cakes two years ago! Anyhow, he was very excited with himself. So can you guess how we spent our evenings last week! Good thing cake mix was on sale last weekend. And Tom and Allison did a great job passing out lots of cake so we did not have to bring much home. And now Scott is officially a Webelos I. Next year he will be a Webelos II, and then on to Boy Scouts.

Before we even finished decorating Scott's cake on Saturday afternoon, Allison and I joined our neighbors for a fund raising event for the people of Haiti. Participants all met at our local park to attempt to join hands all around the lake. They estimated needing 4000 people to wrap around the whole lake, however, they managed to bring in about 1000 people, so we didn't quite make it all the way around, but most people were happy to provide donations. I was a bit hesitant to attend as I did not wish to get stuck waiting in long lines for a shuttle bus back to our local school parking lots. Turns out it was very smooth moving and well organized. They had free school bus shuttles bringing people in and out of the park, right on schedule. And when we arrived, we located our neighbors and their group quite easily. After joining hands and a quick song on bagpipes, we all went home. Allison even managed to get her photo and name in the local paper for the event! The sponsoring group turned out to be the Ellicott City Rotary Club along with a kids summer camp organization called Kids for Peace. All the money raised will be sent to the Sarasota Florida Rotary Club to ship off supplies to Haiti. It really was a well organized and crafted event(too bad girl scouts can't run as smoothly). And the weather was surprisingly sunny although a bit chilly. We were worried that we would be snowed under again this week, but the big storm stayed along the shoreline and hit PA, New Jersey and New York with 20 inches of snow! We still have everyone beat with 80 inches of snow so far this winter! Rather than the snow storm we had a snow hurricane come through. Once again I was grateful that the power stayed on.

The kids were hoping for another snow day. They are a bit overwhelmed with the tight school schedule they have been under lately. Since they missed over a week of school, the teachers have been playing catch up by squeezing in lots of tests and papers and projects in a shorter time span. I have never felt so disorganized. Fortunately, they decided to make up the missed days by having the kids attend school the whole day rather than 1/2 days for teacher development days. And they will go a whole day right before Easter break. They have also extended the school year to June 23rd. At least we will not be losing our Easter break(there was a threat). And they actually waived a few days-not an easy task. We are all holding our breath that the weather stays decent so as not to extend the school year into the 2010-11 school year!
We also returned to indoor field hockey since the building was repaired. Allison should be done, but they rescheduled the missed games. She got some extra playing time last week as a few other teams asked her to fill in as their goalie. I would have loved to send Allison to a free goalie clinic this coming weekend at Towson University, but Allison and I will be busy sleeping that day. Next weekend is our up all night girl scout event, which means sleep all the next day. I am sure other opportunities will present themselves in the future. She would like to attend a field hockey summer camp, and I have not yet checked out the county spring schedule. Scott just informed me that he wants to try baseball. He thinks because he can play the Wii sports that he can play in real life. I think he is in for an eye opener. That is why I sign the kids up at the YMCA-they actually give the kids instruction on how to play(and it is cheaper!).
So a Big Happy Birthday to Susan Seitz. She celebrated her birthday by getting a new dog! Sadly her dog Fred was put down a week ago, and she and her husband John were feeling rather lonely, so they replaced Fred with Gus-a ridgeback/hound mix. He should be a good running companion for John and walking partner for Sue. I know how nice it is to take a walk with the dog in tow, although sometimes that is all I am doing(towing Cookie down the road since she gets so interested in trying to chase birds and squirrels and blowing leaves!).

Well, I guess you could say things are finally getting back to normal. All though it has been a bit painful. The kids were off on Monday for President's Day, and they closed school again on Tuesday. When they finally did get back to school, it was after a 2 hour delay in the morning. The counties were just having too much trouble moving all the snow. And schools were still not cleared, especially sidewalks. We actually have quite a few kids that walk to school, and it was just too dangerous to walk in the roads. For some reason, Maryland didn't build shoulders alongside the roads. So there really was no place to put all the snow. They had to bring in dump trucks in downtown Baltimore, scoop up the snow and dump it in the bay! It looked like a very big slushy! And the temperature is rising slowly, which is probably a good thing for us since the snow is melting slowly. If it melted all at once, we'd have to break out the life jackets and the Ark!
Our average snowfall in Maryland is apparently 18 inches for the entire Winter. This year we are around 73 inches and we haven't hit Spring yet! Needless to say, we surpassed a few old records. And we also discovered that the guys that measure the snowfall at the airport play a big role in the economy and how federal funding is determined. Looks like here in Baltimore, they opted to use one of their own technicians to measure snowfall rather than a meteorologist. Turns out both groups measure snowfall differently. Weather guys measure snow hourly, which has a lot to do with how compact the snow gets and how long it sits. The technicians at the airport just care about how much snow affects the operation of the airport. The government has set standards in determining how much snow equals how many federal dollars used to help clean up the snow. So there is a discrepancy between our airport people and our weather people. Looks like we hit around 63 inches all said and done over the last two weeks. Now the FAA and weather people are questioning the measurements dating all the way back to the early 1900s. Crazy stuff. We just know it was a ton of snow in a short period of time and that the roadbergs are going to be around until April it seems.
I was laughing at an article in the paper, an editorial discussing the joys of snow days. Including the mad rush to the stores to buy meat, milk and toilet paper. Then the need to cook huge chunks of meat which find their way into soups(mine end up in pot pies!) as well as lots of cookies. And the fun of picking up the excessive clutter in the house which occurs when children stay home from school for more than one day. Including all the wet mittens, hats, boots, snow pants and coats that are strewn from the garage all the way to the fireplace in the family room! And the shear excitement of watching front loaders push snow up out of the roads onto the neighbor's front yards. I actually took a video of the front loader cleaning up the extra snow on our street at night. Too bad we couldn't have sold some of this extra stuff to Vancouver. Baltimore actually had to buy more road salt from Mexico since the whole east coast ran out(or they were hoarding their supplies). And driving on our roads has been very interesting lately. I took the neighbor ladies and girls out to see Percy Jackson The Lightning Thief and as I was dropping everyone off, I drove up to about a dozen deer coming right at me down our road! They decided to jump over the 4ft snow bank and attempted to cross the neighbor's yard. The ladies were afraid they would get stuck in the snow and made me slow down to look!
So don't you wish you could all share in this fabulous experience? I got yelled at from my boss for having to adjust my work schedule because when the kids finally went back to school they had a two hour delay, and I had to drop them off before going into work. Tom finally ended up in California for his business trip. He needed to stay and work 2 weeks, so he decided it would be better to stay over the weekend rather than try to get home, only to go back to the airport and spend another day traveling. That worked fine for me since he mostly catches up on his sleep when he gets back from a trip. And I had a very busy weekend with the kids.
As I mentioned, all the activities that we planned several weekends ago were bumped to future weekends. Allison and I participated in a Girl Scout International Day on Saturday(that was already scheduled and ran on time). We were singing in the opening ceremony with the GS choir. The event was held at a local catholic high school this year, so Allison got a sneak peak into one our catholic schools(rather old and run down). She enjoyed listening to the speaker from the Peace Corps, and tasting a rice cake from the phillipines(more like a sweet cupcake with ground meat on the bottom). We also picked up some great handouts for her Health teacher on nutrition and exercise. In the meantime, I paid to have Scott stay with a babysitter at our neighbor's house since this was an all girl event. He certainly enjoyed his play date with the neighbor's son. On Sunday, after church in the morning and some intense homework and studying, we all joined Scott's school for an afternoon of bowling. The event had been scheduled several weeks earlier, but was canceled due to the snow. They had several kids cancel so I asked if Allison could come along. They asked if she could chaperone a lane of kids next to the lane I was watching, plus they let her bowl and eat pizza too. Worked for us. We all had a lot of fun and even saw our next door neighbor there celebrating their daughter's birthday. The place was packed. After bowling, I thought I could get the kids their haircuts that they desperately needed. However, when we arrived at the salon in the mall there was a 2hour wait, and the mall was closing before that! I guess everyone is still behind on their schedules! It was bad enough trying to find a parking place, so we just bought dinner at the Food Court and headed home to finish up our homework/studying.
My biggest challenge when Tom is out of town is getting the kids where they need to be. I managed to get Scott to gymnastics and Allison to piano, but her indoor Field Hockey is on hold due to damage to the building's roof from the snow. Not sure when it will be fixed.
I do try to get most of my errands run on Fridays. I discovered the Boy Scout store near the airport and was busy spending the afternoon buying Scott his new patches for his khaki shirt. This weekend he will celebrate his advancement from a cub scout to a Webelo Scout and switches from his blue shirt to his khaki shirt. So I had to get all new patches sewn on(but first I had to buy them!). I also picked up some supplies for cake decorating as he usually participates in the cake making contest for the blue and gold dinner. Boy Scouts is celebrating their 100th year so we will make the biggest birthday cake we can assemble(without tipping over!). There is a "tallest cake" category. Everything must be edible too. He also has a vest full of patches that I asked one of my girl scouts to sew on for him so he can wear it to the banquet. I also found the kids a new dentist office and scheduled them an appt in a few weeks. I signed up for a new insurance from my job since Tom's dental program has been sorely lacking. Limited choices and many dentists keep dropping the insurance(Cigna). So it will be interesting to see how the new dentist turns out(a woman who has an office right around the corner from us). I was impressed with the fact that when I stopped into the office, they were closed, but the receptionist opened the door and let me in to talk to me and make appointments. It is pretty hard to find decent service like that nowadays.
Other sad news, Linda Seitz lost her grandmother last week-she passed away at 101! She was still living in her own house in Michigan. I will really miss hearing Flossie stories!
My best (OT) friend Laura fell over some bowling ball bags while attending a fund raiser activity and broke her arm(shoulder area-neck of the humerus). She was busy celebrating her raffle win and ended up on the floor with a broken arm. She thought she would get away with a sling for 6 wks, and then lots of therapy, but the orthopedic MDs decided she required surgery. So in she went for surgery. On top of all that, her sister in law passed away. Our sympathy goes out to Dan and Laura. She had to decide between surgery or a funeral. Not a great choice. Hope you are taking it easy Laura and recuperating.
This has been quite a year so far. I will let you know how we survive all the snow and the threat of more to come! Kathleen and family

Happy Valentine's Day! Our Maryland governor extended our Valentine's Day until Feb 21st to allow people to spend more money on flowers, cards, jewelry and other love gifts, as well as going out to eat since we have all been snowed in for over a week. Our family decided to have our usual toned down Valentine's Day celebration at home anyway. Tom made us all a great salmon dinner and we enjoyed GS Thin Mint ice cream for dessert. Tom bought me a gold necklace with a family charm, and I bought us both a wine tasting class. Plus I treated myself to a haircut! (finally).
Both of the kids could use a haircut, but I haven't been able to get to the mall, and when the streets cleared up a bit, I didn't want to go anywhere near the mall since I figured it would be filled with tons of kids bored out of their minds. Plus limited parking due to all the snow.
As you may have heard, Maryland and most of the east coast was slammed with an incredible amount of snow-2 feet over the Super Bowl weekend, and another two feet just a few days later. Our entire state has been busy digging out paths that we call "roads". The snow began falling the friday night of Super Bowl weekend, and it feels like it hasn't stopped. Our road was not plowed for 4 days, and it took Tom and I two days to finish our driveway and front walk, plus a pathway out the back door on the deck to the yard to allow the dog a place to go potty. The snow was so deep, the snow blower couldn't blow the snow high enough, and it was getting difficult to lift the snow up over your head. This was especially difficult for me since most of the snow piles were definitely over my head! I finally wore out my shoulder after a week of lifting heavy snow and chiseling out the ice. I have been on heavy duty motrin all week so I could get in a few days of work. We can't let the dog outside in the backyard by herself to go to the bathroom because the snow is so high it is over the 3 ft fence. Cookie just runs over the fence from the backyard to the front door. The only problem is, sometimes she prefers to run down to the neighbors for a visit, and she can also run on top of the snow which doesn't help when you are trying to catch her!
Basically all of our activities we had planned for Super Bowl weekend were cancelled. We were supposed to go complete our volunteer work for our Disney tickets-rescheduled. A wine tasting gala was cancelled. Scott's bowling party for the entire school was rescheduled. No piano lessons. But we did manage to squeeze in the Super Bowl party at our house. Most people made it down the street on little paths everyone made while out walking their dogs. Our one main road through the neighborhood was cleared, but only one car width. It made walking and driving quite hazardous. And lots of tree branches down, power outages. We were nice and comfy in our house and enjoyed cheering on the Colts for the Super Bowl. Sadly it did not help. We did have a few Saints fans present. We were all quite surprised by the outcome of the game-it was very exciting at least. And the food was great(not to mention the beer supply). And the kids loved playing with each other(and my house got cleaned and dirtied all in one weekend!). Some neighbors were just happy to have a warm place to sit, warm food and internet service since they had been out of power for several days. Even the pet turtle went into hibernation until they got him in some warmer water!
And so they actually closed school for the entire week following the big storms. We may have been able to plow out from under after the first big storm on Super Bowl weekend, but along came another 2 feet of snow in the middle of the week,and on top of that, blizzard conditions! I made it to work 2 out of 4 days, Tom spent some time working from home, and managed to get into the office about 3 days out of the week. It reminded me of Winter Break in Boston. They automatically build in a week off school in the winter for a break, as well as Spring break. And school ran until the end of June in Boston. And so it seems for us as well. We are now set to end on June 23rd. And they took away a few teacher inservice days. But at least they did not take away our Easter break. They were threatening. We would not be too happy since we already bought plane tickets to LA.
So instead we stayed pretty much at home for a whole week-from the 8th to the 12th. Tom's trip to LA was cancelled(thank goodness). The airports were a mess. Fortunately the kids already had a few days scheduled off for Parent Teacher conferences. And the teachers still managed to send home some projects and extra homework for the kids via email(isn't technology wonderful!). So besides a very early start to Spring cleaning, Tom and I worked with the kids on their homework assignments and stayed warm, in between plowing.
And by the following weekend, we were busy trying to catch up with all the activities that were cancelled the weekend before. We started with our Volunteer work for Disney. We volunteered to assemble luminary bags for a Relay for Life Cancer Fund. The Relay will be held in June, and they light luminary bags for cancer survivors. Between our family and one other, we assembled 400 bags. And we earned free admission passes to Disneyland or Disneyworld for a day. Since we are visiting California this spring, we decided to use our tickets there. Sadly, since we had to change our schedule, Scott missed out on a laser tag birthday, so Tom took him in the evening to play while Allison babysat for the neighbors. She definitely managed to get quite a bit of extra babysitting done since school was closed but most of the neighbors had to get to work on days when the roads were partially cleared.
So I took lots of snow pictures and Tom thankfully put a few on my blog so you can all see how much snow we have been shoveling and snow blowing. Hope spring comes soon!
Kathleen and Family

Wow. You could say we got a little bit of snow. How about nearly 3 inches here in Howard County. Most everyone else had 2 inches. Most of the snow fell Friday night into Saturday afternoon. The sun actually came out in the early evening. Between Tom and myself, we managed to make a pathway to the street down the driveway, a pathway to our front door and Tom cleaned out a space in front of the garage doors. Allison made a small path out on our deck so Cookie could get out for a potty break. We also managed to clean out around 3 sides of my van parked in the driveway, but even if our driveway was cleared, we couldn't go anywhere since our street has not yet been cleared. It was amazing to watch the news reports and see the whole state come to a standstill.
Not so on Friday. Before the snow began, everyone was visiting the grocery stores and gas stations. Our station down the street actually ran out of gas by Friday morning. I stopped in to fill our tank for the snowblower and had to visit another station down the road. Fortunately I had already finished my big grocery shopping early in the week in preparation for the Super Bowl game. We had already planned on hosting the neighborhood football party. I was glad I had already picked up most of the food, although I did make one more party food pitstop on Friday morning(chips and soda). I also managed to get Cookie to her vet appointment Friday morning, and visited with Allison's english teacher before classes started. I wanted to get an idea of how the county assessments worked, and the tests are not allowed home so I had to preview it with the teacher. He was on a tight scheduled however since they decided to let the kids out 3 hours early on Friday in anticipation of the big snow. So Allison was home by 1130 and Scott needed picked up at 1230.
Tom on the other hand was supposed to fly into Baltimore Friday night. I had contacted him Thursday night and asked if he couldn't get an earlier flight home since the airport was already talking about closing, and flights were already cancelled. Tom was put on a standby flight Friday morning, but he thought if he missed the morning flight, he would be arriving on Saturday instead. I warned him that he probably would not get home until Sunday at best. Turns out, our neighbor flew to San Diego this weekend and was supposed to arrive Friday night. Instead, they are talking about a Monday arrival now. Tom was down in Huntsville Alabama and he said the weather really wasn't too bad where he was-just a light rain. But up here obviously it turned into a blizzard with an incredible amount of snow! Thankfully, he made the Friday morning flight and arrived before the snowstorm.
Not surprisingly, everything on our calendar this weekend was cancelled. Allison had planned on attending a party at the library for the opening of the Lightning Thief movie. She read the series, along with our neighbor's daughter, and the library was planning a free night of games and dinner and snacks. Fortunately, that activity was rescheduled for next Friday. Not surprising, her piano lessons were cancelled, along with our plans to complete our volunteer work for our free Disney tickets. That activity was rescheduled as well for next weekend. Not rescheduled was the wine tasting gala that Tom and I were invited to with our old neighbors. Their school puts on a fund raiser every other year which involves a whole lot of food and wine tasting. We had a wonderful time 2 years ago, and we were really looking forward to another great event. Oh well, we just have to be patient for another 2 years.
My guess is that Scott's school will cancel the school bowling event scheduled for tomorrow afternoon. Our neighbors wanted to know if we were cancelling our super bowl party too! Fortunately for us, our power has stayed on. But neighbors around the corner were left in the dark. They are bunking down on our street. Some of our neighbors don't feel like attempting the walk over to our house(older neighbors), and some traveled out of town this weekend and won't be returning any time soon! So it looks like we will be having a smaller gathering Sunday evening, which is fine for me.
And since we really couldn't go anywhere this weekend, it gave me lots of time to cook and clean and help the kids with their homework.
Sounds just like my week with the kids as Tom was out of town since last Sunday. I had a lot of running around to do during the week, including a few medical appts for Scott and myself. And we had a few inches of snow earlier in the week that kept schools from opening on time, so I had to drop the kids off in the morning before heading to work myself. Allison did manage to get her field hockey games in as well as Scott's gymnastics class. Looks like I just needed one more doctor visit since I ended up with pink eye at the end of the week.
I'm pretty sure it has something to do with the vast amounts of mold that were uncovered in our basement rehab gym this past week. Our new supervisor was busy reorganizing and located a large patch of mold growing behind a wallpapered section of the clinic. They thought a little paint would fix up everything until they peeled the wallpaper off the wall. Yuck. In less than one hour our clinic looked like a scene from ET complete with lots of plastic wrap and concerned looking administrators. However, I don't think it was fast enough since I have a lovely red eye. At least Tom and I have had our share of pink eye in the past, so I had some eye drops in the medicine cabinet, but I wouldn't mind getting checked out before heading back to work this week since pink eye is very catchy. It's bad enough that some nasty stomach bug is going around work. We have had to close several floors/buildings on campus to quarantine the residents with stomach flu. I just hope I can get the car out of the driveway sometime this week!
We are worried about our snow days. We only have 2 left, and the school system is threatening to take away the kids spring break. Of course Tom and I plan on taking the kids to California that week!