House rules - Graffitti?

So - I know I shouldn't, but I couldn't resist posting these pictures.
One day it will be REALLY funny. We can say - "we always knew our child was an artist"
I figure I might be okay as long as she doesn't know I'm posting it on the internet for everyone to see her deviance - and at such a young age - oh my!
Apparently, we have a few house rules - and we wanted to make sure everyone knew about them.
The one with the pinkish background is our driveway. The others are actually ON the house and garage door!
Since we had the house appraised yesterday, we tried to wash them off (try that in freezing weather - the rag kept freezing!) - this alone stands as a testament of our 2007 house rules.

Some new pictures of SNOW

So - I finally have some pictures to justify my previous rant about the snow. Did I mention how much I don't like snow? Okay - snow can be okay, but not every day. We are supposed to get snow again today... imagine that. So today, I had to scrape my windows INSIDE the car again after seminary - a mere 50 minutes. Crazy. Actually - let's talk about crazy. Were you aware that it was -20 this morning? Now - yeah that happens a couple of times a year around here, but the crazy part would be the part about my husband going running in it. The treadmill broke, so now he's getting up when I do (yes prior to 5:00 am) so that he can get his running in. I believe it is in the certifiably crazy range. However, I did see one other runner out this morning on my way to seminary.
On to new things.
Last week I wasn't sure whether seminary was going to keep on going, but it appears that it will be. Big issues there, but hopefully one day they will be ironed out.
Let's see... I think I just need to get on with the pictures.
I think we'll start off with the snowmen. Yes - I know, I keep talking about the snowmen, but they are a visual icon of my winter grief. This week we had an awful storm. Ever heard of THUNDER SNOW? Yes, you heard me right, THUNDER. It's like a mini cyclone in the snow. Complete with thunder and lightening. While I didn't hear the thunder or lightening, I did see the complete white out and watch my picnic table on the back deck be pushed across the deck and later the chair on the deck (heavy wood) be thrown from the back porch onto the lawn. I was also conscious that my husband was out driving in this storm. So... my point is that this horrible storm actually DECAPITATED my snowman!! What a slap in the face - well, but the face is now on the ground. So - here are some pictures. One I took last week of the snowmen, and one I took today of the decapitation. You may note that they haven't really changed in size... maybe bigger??I wonder why??


Continuing on - here are some pictures I took a couple of weeks ago of my daughter sledding in the back yard. We have some rock steps which lead up to the sandbox. During the winter, it makes a small sledding hill. In the first photo you can see the snow levels as reflected by the rock retaining wall and jungle gym. In the second photo you see how cute she is. In the third, you may note the dramatic increase of snow levels by these same standards of measurement.



Here just for fun are a couple more of the snow. A mound of snow directly across the street from us on the school sidewalk. A close up of our raspberry plants - as you can see halfway covered - the fence is also almost half covered. And finally - our poor lilac bushes in our front yard... mostly covered-and they aren't that short!

I am SO sick of SNOW!!

I'm sorry - I just can't get over it. I just looked at the forecast for the next 10 days. There are two days (out of the next 10) which aren't forecasted to snow. What's up with that? And they are only 'partly cloudy days.' I've got to vent, cause I'm so stinking sick and tired of this weather. No joke, it's been like 3-4 weeks since we've been having snow every single flipping day. Finally last week at least it wasn't in the negatives, but this is ridiculous. We have snowmen in the front yard from 3 weeks ago - they've actually been gaining weight!! No joke! (I do have pictures) Maybe we'll have them until March (the way this is looking). So - I'm kind of ticked off and so tired of this. At least we had a sunny saturday. my husband spent most of the day prying up huge 5 inch thick and 4 foot across ice chunks from the driveway. We have piles of snow that are in excess of 6 feet piled up along the roadways - it's just got to stop. Yes, we live in the mountains, what do we expect - but we've been here for almost 10 years... hello...we have enough snow! Okay - so just to keep this in perspective, we have a deck in our back yard off of our kitchen. To access the grass, there is a 12 inch high step. It's pretty lame, but our builder just wanted to be done... What I'm trying to say here though is that the snow in our backyard is only slightly less than level with our porch - forget the step. The jungle gymn is buried halfway up with snow, and the trampoline (which has a frozen dry spot underneath it) really shows the difference - it looks like almost 3 feet of snow.
Okay... so I think that's enough venting for now. I just want some of those sunny skies and beautiful days that I love so much back!!!
I will post some pictures of our snowmen (3 weeks old and counting) as well as some yard pictures - just so everyone knows I'm really not even exaggerating.
Finally, some child of mine, decided to list some "house rules" on the house. You can see them listed on the garage door when it is shut. I'll post them as well, but you can't tell her. She's going to have to scrub it off as soon as the water won't freeze on her. It is slightly humorous (always in retrospect though eh?) -I'll get them up in the next couple of days and let you judge.
:) If you have sun where you are - please bask an extra five minutes in it just for me...
On the bright side (have to find one in there sometime), once it gets warm enough, we can do some killer snowshoeing!!

Saturday January 19, 2008

Well - it's been a bit of a while since I last posted. Life has seemed a little more hectic than usual. It could just be exacerbated by the snow and cold. We are in a huge cold snap and it REALLY STINKS. We are consistently having to scrape the ice off of the insides of our car windows as we get going. We've had snow (even just a dusting) almost every single morning for about two weeks. We built two snowmen - yes from my last blog on the 6th. They haven't even started to begin to melt because it has been so darn cold. They've actually been gaining weight, and I can't imagine they are very happy!
I decided to really pick up and work hard to finish up my last class (ASAP) so that I can just be done. (I thought I was finished, but they told me I had one class I was still missing.) I'm about half way through it, and just want to finish it up..So, I've been working on that on the weekends, and a couple of days during the week.

I was finally able to adjust my schedule a bit, and it seems to have been very beneficial. Instead of getting up to get ready for seminary at 4:30-4:45, I started getting up at 5:04 (huge difference - believe me!) I've been waiting to really shower and get ready for my day until later. Once I get back from seminary, I get my daughter out the door my friend shows up, and we exercise in the basement together. My youngest has even been joining us. We then have breakfast, and then I can shower and get ready. I still fall asleep over my books (now earlier), but it has really helped with the balance.
Seminary has really been a struggle - there seems to be a pervasive attitude coming from some of the parents, and is adopted by the students, and has sort of been feeding off of itself. It is very unfortunate. The program is sort of being evaluated this weekend, and we'll see what happens from here. It has been frustrating to work my kiester off, and see such negative results... I'm not sure where we go from here.
We are gearing up for a sunny trip in February to celebrate our 10th anniversary, and pretty excited about it. It is always fun to have something warm and exciting to plan for and look forward to. Likewise, we are looking forward to a half marathon my husband is training for in March, and our daughter's baptism in May. We have been toying with the idea of finishing up our basement this spring so that it will be done before the baptism... We are still trying to find a contractor...we'll see where that goes.
So - despite the everyday cold, and trials, life is great. We have sunny skies today, and it was 3* this morning (rather than the -9 or -13). The sun always rises.

I have a great quote on our wall in the kitchen which someone once gave me. It is by Gordon B. Hinckley. It says - "It will all work out. I tell myself that everyday. I get up in the morning and pray to the Lord and go to work, but this is His work, and it will all work out." Well - something to that effect - one day I'll go get it and quote it correctly, but that's the general thought. We both commented this week how we both think about that quote every single day and how it helps us to keep on going. There's definitely nothing like winter that makes you appreciate the spring!
That's it for today.

January week 1

Well - New Years' came and went. We opted to go to a friend's house for a party instead of having our own this year.
I do have to point out - this past week has just been downright FRIGID!! We had to scrape the windows from the inside of the car all week long... totally crazy - and super freezing!
My husband worked on New Year's day for several hours, then came home and helped get all of the Christmas decorations put back away. Since the girls got some ice skates for Christmas, we decided to try them out. We made it to the local park where they've iced down a spot for skating. Unfortunately, an entire gaggle of people was there - they had a little fire going, and a huge old and young guys hockey game going. We decided to skate a little bit anyways (they said they'd share), and we skated back and forth (dodging pucks) behind the goal post at one end. The girls seemed to love it and really got the hang of it - although I think they may have just gone to eat the snow - they really liked that part. Also - our youngest didn't really like the falling down part - she doesn't have much padding - and said that it really hurt!



It continued to be super cold throughout the week. Seminary started back up again, and our youngest was working through a fever, and as I wasn't feeling well... we sort of just chilled all week. I finished my first hand quilted wall hanging - I was hoping to finish it by Thanksgiving, but seeing as I only started it two weeks before, it wasn't likely. Following is a picture. I'm so excited to have it finished since I saw the pattern three years ago at a friends, and have had it in my drawer ever since. Another friend saw it and wanted to do it, and helped me get started on it (although she hasn't finished hers yet).

Just a note - I personalized it, but on the home square I covered our address as I didn't want to post it on the internet - so it doesn't really have that weird paper thing going on other than in this photo.
Saturday morning was just nice and balmy (except for the super slick roads). It actually rained all day Saturday - it was pretty weird - sort of March weather. My husband and the girls decided to spend some time outside playing in the snow. Due to all of the rain (on top of large amounts of snow) we had perfect snowman snow. Nice and heavy and wet. Our youngest did a lot of cheerleading since the snowballs were so heavy. She also made some nice snow angels, and later decided to do some sledding in the front yard. She, our oldest and my husband then went across to the park and enjoyed further sledding until it was too dark to dodge the trees.



Finally, I had to add the picture of our oldest with all of the bubbles - we did some bubbles and the girls went crazy - they were everywhere and it was a blast - we used the plastic ones so they stuck around (literally) for a long time (I'm still finding them!)

We had company over for dinner on Friday, and then today had invited a couple of people over - the missionaries dropped by right on time, (with no invite) and we had a grand little dinner party this afternoon as well.
I'm still chilling and fighting a fever, and I've developed a rather nasty cough. We woke up to 6-8 inches of snow (at least)... and it snowed all day. Driving home from church was a white out - pretty crazy. We are supposed to get another 6+ inches tonight (at least) and due to the icy roads, seminary has been canceled tomorrow. I think I'll be sleeping in trying to kick this cold. I think I'm going to also break out the snowshoes tomorrow - perfect snow for it!