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