Feb
2014

Six more weeks of winter??

SnowAt school I made a sock puppet, and this week my friends and I did a puppet show for my class. The show was called “The Best Slumber Party Ever!” We made Valentine’s holders at school with our Grade 8 Reading Buddies. I got an Our Generation doll and her name is Belle.

IMG_6159He said

So let’s just get this out of the way now: Wiarton Willie, the fabled prognosticator of our winter’s grip on us, unleashed the bad news this morning that upon seeing his shadow, he doomed us to six more weeks of winter. Now, I hate to get old man on here and reduce myself to bitching about the weather, but I do think it is important that years from now when Emelia stumbles upon this blog, that she understands this winter was likely of the bitterest in her seven years. It started in November and has steadily been kicking us around and toying with us for four solid months. Thoughts of getting Wolfie out of storage and into a campsite in the warmer weather is all we seem to think about these days…

IMG_6166This week for me has seen me on a nine-day stretch at work of which I am just over half way through. Having last week off, and then the weird switcharoo I did a week ago, I think made the schedule burp out a marathon stretch for me. The funny thing is, I am not really feeling like it is a marathon. It helps a heap when you absolutely love the job and feel lucky to have the opportunity to do something you love. Don’t get me wrong, I will relish every bit of the days off I get this week. And the counter to having this nine day stretch is that I have two days off on Wednesday and Thursday, work Friday and then am off for the weekend. That will certainly allow for some reconnection and recharging!

IMG_6160

As for Emelia, coming down off a birthday bonanza like last weekend is a pretty tall order. She has been whizzing around crafts all week mostly focused on creating all manner of bracelets, necklaces and rings with her rainbow loom. But she has also mixing in time on her weaving loom that she got from Poppa and Grandma. But she also never misses a chance to create art with her studio from Gramps and Oma. She really is becoming quite the artist!

IMG_6171

Even though we are in the thick of snow and more storms are on their way, Danielle and I have started to map out our summer plans for Wolfie the trailer. Danielle has already laid out her weeks off to the daycare families, and I am working on trying to turn as many of the long weekends as we can this summer into four-day weekends that we can take Wolfie out in. It’s probably the only thought that is getting us through this long, cold winter. We’re both very excited to have our first full spring, summer and fall run with Wolfie and to break her in with lots of use.

IMG_6162

The other thing on the warmer weather radar is the Home County Music & Arts Festival. I have the luxury of knowing a lot of the artist confirmations so far and I am happy to say I am as excited about this year’s festival as I have been for past editions. There are some very big names on the bill as well as some less big ones, but ones that I am equally excited about. I can’t wait till it is all finalized and we are able to make the lineup public.

So really all that is left is to ride out the remainder of winter’s last gasp that February will provide, and hopefully prove Willie wrong with anything less than six more weeks of the frigidity he predicted. And then we will be back to the world of spending much more time outside than we do in. Until then, the hibernating indoors, planning sunny day things will have to suffice!

 

IMG_6168

She said

This week was unfortunately more about illness and bitter cold than fun and excitement. As John has mentioned this winter has been VERY long and VERY cold. In the 13+ years we have lived here the basement pipes have frozen for a day maybe 3x. This winter they have been frozen 3x each for a few days at a time. Heck even the older daycare kids now ask if they should use the upstairs bathroom or the daycare one because of the pipes. So with no water in the basement doing things like laundry has been a marathon event when we finally have water flowing.

So with long, long days with sub-zero temperatures it has made for some crazy days around here. Add in almost all the kids have caught a particularly nasty cold it made for quite a doozy of a week. For some the colds were so bad that one that has resulted in hospital visits for some of the kids and fevers for the others. Needless to say this week I have been covered in snot from various sources. I wasn’t spared either. Now I didn’t get it as bad as some of the kids but I did get a lovely cold. Thank goodness for cold medicine to let me get through the daycare days.

IMG_6169

By Saturday I was starting to finally mend, the nose was still running like crazy but it was moving and I wasn’t feeling as bad. Good timing as we had a fun play date planned for the weekend. The plans were with one of my former and most favourite daycare families. Emelia and Reece grew up together, she was like a fake big sister to him and we try to get together often so the kids can see each other, Norma and I can catch up and of course I can get some snuggle time with their newest family member the ever so cute Presley.

We were originally supposed to have our playdate today but with a nasty weather day forecast for Saturday Norma and I switched the days since they had some things to do the opposite day out of town.

IMG_6167Norma has forever spoiled Emelia (and me for that matter), she loves to give gifts and always gave Emelia the most amazing presents. This year she asked if Emelia would prefer a present or a play date with Reece at a local play zone for kids – her treat. Emelia needed no time to think about it, she wanted a play date with her fake little brother. Emelia adores Reece and she of course adores seeing the baby. So with plans in hand we were off to Kidscape for what we thought would be an hour or so. Five hours later we were practically closing the place. The kids not only played and played and played in the climber, electronic games, riding cars they also made some ceramics. Needless to say the kids had an absolute ball and it was just what we all needed after this LONG and never ending winter. Norma and I sat and chatted away, we took turns snuggling the baby and the kids played forever. It was a perfect day in spite of the less than perfect weather.

Today was a lower key day, the driveway and roads were a mess from the storm the day before. Thank goodness for our neighbour Greg who once again helped me dig out from the latest storm. This one would have taken most of the day to dig out as it was layers of ice on snow on ice and more ice. Needless to say I didn’t feel bad what so ever not hitting the gym today.

That is all for the week, off to spend a bit of time with John and to watch the end of the Superbowl and to see if the Broncos will wake up and make a game of it.

Leave a Reply