Snow day #3

Well, we awoke to another snow day. Mark almost had one too. It took us over 50 minutes to get the car open so he could even get it started. The locks were frozen and then the doors themselves were froze. We had a high temp yesterday of 45 degrees. It was 39 degrees at 7 p.m. then dropped 25 degrees by 1 a.m. The major problem with that is that while it was 39 it was raining. With the quick drop in temps, we had what meteorologists call "flash freezing". Mainly, there is a thick layer of ice under the very fine snow that is blowing and drifting and making white-out conditions. Our windchills officially qualify as "dangerous" as they are in the teens below zero. It is a good day to be inside. Fortunately, we have not lost power as a lot of people in the area have. Mark did make it to work safely although 30 minutes late.
I had hoped to go to Aunt Millie's Bakery because they are taking applications for a merchandiser today from 1-4 p.m. But I didn't feel that it was worth just putting in an application to keep the car today. If it was an actual interview, I would have considered it. We can't have anything happen to this car as it is the only one we have. I'm hoping that they may take them on another day too seeing as State Police are saying to stay home if at all possible.
I did go on an employment tour at UPS last night. It is a possibility that I could work there as a package handler nights. It would be hard work & I would definitely get in better shape then I am right now. It also has very good benefits so we are thinking about it.
This snow day also means that I probably have to cook dinner tonight. We normally have dinner at church on Wednesday, but the rule of thumb is "no school, no church". Actually, as I was typing this the official notice came through that all activities at church are cancelled. So I guess I better go get the kitchen cleaned up so I can cook something tonight.

Winter's back...

Well, we have been back to winter weather since my last post. It's typical MI. Last weekend we were in the teens or below and now we are supposed to get to 40 by Monday and have rain on top of the 8-10 inches of snow that has fallen recently. The kids have now had 2 snow days during January. One was more because of fallen power lines in the area than for the ice itself. The other one was this last Tues and it was definitely a good call not to have school that day. GR Public even called off school and that only happens on rare occassions, like every 2-3 years.
My family is going to be going through withdrawl tomorrow. No football and no NASCAR! What to do on a Sunday afternoon without either of those. That only happens a couple of times a year but this is one of them. Even though there are some weeks that there are Saturday races during NASCAR season, at our house they are still Sunday races as we tape them instead of letting Stephen stay up too late on Saturday evening.
At least it is AWANA Grand Prix time so they have their cars to work on and at least think about racing. Mark has Stephen at the church right now for what they call "Pit day" where they bring in tools that not everyone has at home and then they can work on them there. Rachel is done with making cars since she is in youth group now and Joshua is still in Sparks and they don't do the cars yet.
Rachel battled a really bad head cold this week. She missed school on Monday, then Tuesday was a snow day, Wednesday we got her there long enough to take her midterms that were that day, she missed Thursday but was back and doing better on Friday which is when her other midterms were. Fortunately, she was able to get there for all of her midterms and there weren't many other assignments that she missed when she was out because it was mostly prep time for the midterms.
The rest of us are healthy and doing fine. I can't think of much else to update you on right now. I guess I would just say to keep praying for us and our car situation (getting us everywhere with 1 vehicle is tricky) and also I am looking for the right part-time position for me. See it is a bit tough as I can't do a daytime position because of Joshua's intestinal difficulties, but I also don't want EVERY night committed to a job because of needing to be able to do stuff with the family (school & church commitments, etc) & then there is the 1 car situation to deal with too. So I am looking but haven't found the right opportunity yet.

Weather

With Big Brother doing lots of shovelling & Dad shivering, I just had to tell you that it was 52 when we woke up this morning which broke a high record for the day. It has now been 64 this afternoon! The kids would like to break out the shorts about now. But all good things must come to an end. They are forecasting snow & 36 by Wednesday again & next week it may not get out of the 20's for highs. MI--gotta love it! If you don't like the weather, you won't have to wait for long to get something different, that's for sure!

Teenager

Yes, we officially have a teenager in the house. Rachel turned 13 on Dec. 20. Tonight is her birthday party. We wanted to let her do something more than she usually gets so she was able to invite 7 girls over for a slumber party. Only 3, however, were actually able to come. 1 cancelled at the last minute because she came down with the flu. We were hoping since the holidays were over and some kids are already back in school that more would be able to come but it didn't work out that way.
We started with gifts and cake/ice cream. Actually, this time I decorated a brownie as her cake was hardly eaten that I did at her actual birthday. Mark then took our boys out for a movie (Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium with Christmas $ from Grampa). I crashed this party because the girls were watching "Hairspray" and I wanted to see it and hadn't yet. Now Rachel has a new DVD, & probably soundtrack too, on her "must have" list.
The girls are doing the HSM (High School Muscial) DVD game. It's the only board game I know that keeps the kids on their feet most of the time. The kids have to learn the dance moves from the movie and be able to figure out what moves are missing when they show a clip. I'm rather glad that we don't have many more girls because we couldn't have many more learning the moves at one time in our living room. (There goes a plate of chips!)
I'm trying to stay out of the way but yet supervise properly. Next will probably be the 2 HSM DVD's. Rachel is hoping to stay up all night but we'll have to see. I have fondue for the girls too but they didn't hardly touch any munchies during the movie so I haven't decided if I'm going to make it or not.
Rachel had to work hard to get to have her party. Besides the cleaning in the basement, she has had to help with cleaning the family room and her room as well as taking down all of the Christmas decorations from the living room. Of course, the hall getting to her room is still a mess but the room is clean, not organized but it is cleaner than it has been in months. Good thing that she had 2 weeks to work on it.
Of course, our poor cat doesn't know what to do with all these giggling girls around here. They are invading her space and quiet time with mom. She also doesn't like all the cleaning. No blankets or pillows on the floor for her to lay on and she lost most of her hiding places in the basement. Guess she'll just have to adjust.
Well, we'll need more prayers than ever to get through these years ahead. We just are going by the theme of HSM, "We're all in this together".

Holidays

Well, we had a very pleasant holiday season. It was actually rather quiet, at least as quiet as this house goes. The only travelling we did was over to Detroit on the 15th for Mark's family Christmas party. We did that as a 1 day trip and even cut it short as the weather was not very nice. We kept on eyes on weather reports through out the day as this was a fast moving system and every time we checked it, the reports changed on who was going to get how much and when it was coming.
Mark's company party was the night before on the 14th so we couldn't go over ahead of time. (Rachel also had a youth group party that night.) The URS party was at a place downtown called the BOB (Big Old Building). It has been renovated on the inside and has several different clubs (bars) and also private rooms to rent. It was definitely rather fancy and we hadn't done anything like that in a long time. I think it would have been nice to of had some little gifts or something rather then having the open bar but I'm not in charge of planning. By 11:00 p.m., it was pretty noticeable of who had taken advantage of the open bar. Quite a few from Mark's department weren't able to make it so even he didn't know a lot of the people there so we were ready for home. What I did find interesting was the number of retirees who were invited and attended the party. They also recognized people for their anniversaries and I am amazed at the people who have worked for URS for 20+ years. It must mean that URS knows how to treat its employees for them to want to stick around so long, right? Hopefully, this is a place that Mark can stick around at too.
Mom came to visit the week before Christmas. It is always fun to have her here. I seem to get to some projects that don't get done otherwise. We even did some baking this time. She had Rachel & Joshua making cut-out sugar cookies while I had Stephen helping me make carmels. This is the first time I have attempted much for baking with the kids and they really enjoyed it. We did some other cookies after she left and put together plates with cards for neighbors and friends.
It was just us for Christmas day. Mark's mom came over on the Wednesday after Christmas though. We actually worked each other pretty hard for Friday & Saturday. I had a friend from church bring over his trailer so we can start going through the basement to get rid of the radon gas in the house. Well, the trailer is almost full, we made 2 trips to Goodwill, and we made 2 trips to our church to what is called a "Paper Gator". This is a recycling program that recycles paper products and our church makes some money off of it so we helped them out for sure. The basement isn't completely done but it is definitely headed in the right direction and we wouldn't have been this far if she hadn't stayed and helped out with it.
More updates soon but just one other thing before I sign off---How's the weather, Dad? At least we have clothes for these temps and they are forecasting a January thaw by Sunday, heading to mid-50's by Tues. Stay warm=)