Maybe you’ve heard the term already, but we’ve been in Snowpocalypse 2012. (Don’t know what that means? Check
UrbanDictionary, of course.) I’ve been posting about the snow but I’m not sure you out-of-towners really know what we Puget Sounders have been going through the last few days. (Melodramatic on purpose. Promise.)
I started on Saturday night with some ice. And a couple of accidents and maybe a road closure or two. Then some lovely snow on Sunday. I took this picture from the car as we parked to go into church. Pretty, right?
So we played and enjoyed and had a grand time Sunday… and Monday… how did I miss posting this beautiful picture of Haley?
Then we had to cancel the biggest event of my year for work because of the weather forecast. Slight bummer. Major logistical nightmare to reschedule. Tuesday, no school. No big deal, we’ve got stuff we can do. Like school work… JT is doing a great job on his addition and got to use M&Ms as props for this worksheet.
He knows 24/26 phonetic sounds for his letters. We’re just sticking with short vowels for now. This allows him to spell all sorts of words. Here I printed some cards with pictures and he would draw and card and spell the word.
Haley wants to do school too sometimes. She is very good at coloring. She holds the crayon fairly correctly, especially considering I have never taught her how. I think I’ve mentioned before that she doesn’t do a lot of scribbling. She very seriously writes small characters all over the page. Haley can also recognize her first letter most of the time, especially if I write it on paper or on the magnadoodle. I say, “What does that spell?” and she gets a big grin and says, “Haley!”
Then she gets down and plays or stays and has a snack while JT finishes up. Jim has been telling her not to stand on the chair. The other day she did a complete head plant off the front and somehow ended in a somersault.
Jim and JT got to play some dot-to-dot and puzzles before nap/leaving for work.
Haley went in to wake JT up from nap. I have learned this is by far the best way to get him up. He cannot keep a straight face long and they end up rolling around and laughing. If I go in, I get Mr. Bear. Haley can also say “George,” for Curious George the monkey. It’s adorable.
Wednesday. No workout. More snow… all day. The kids helped me make breakfast. More school, more games.
I started breaking out new things, like the tangrams JT got for Christmas. Turns out he is not as spatially impaired as I am, and he did a great job doing them – first with help, then on his own.
Thursday we woke up to ice. Lots of ice. I thought I was so original taking pictures of the icicles, and then I saw on Facebook that practically everyone I knew was out taking pictures of icicles. We get them so seldom here that they are a novelty. My work was canceled again. Time to get creative.
Snuggling on the couch before breakfast, making a list of what we could eat.
I started putting batteries in toys that had been dead for ages. JT’s remote control Mater and Haley’s remote control airplane (hand-me-down from JT) kept them busy for quite awhile.
Haley just started wanting to wear these pretty sparkly pink jelly shoes all over the house. They fit now and she brings them to me to put on. Oh my.
We broke out the new playdoh too. JT wanted to make a bird just like the one on the box. We tried our best!
And then. We were snuggled in for a special Snow Day 3 treat to watch some Cars 2 after lunch, before nap. And the power went out. JT was not happy. He said we should call the TV repair guy. That took some explaining.
I curled up by the fireplace with a book and some tea to read while the kids were in bed.
That night we were still without power. I had prepped dinner and put out candles during daylight hours and the gas fireplace was keeping us pretty warm. We decided to make Chocolate Oaties and have cookies by candlelight after a bath. I boiled water for the tub and kept a separate bucket for rinsing. I’m not going to lie, I was feeling a little like a pioneer woman. In my cozy house with food in the fridge and a cell phone.
Friday. No power. 275,000 Puget Sound residents included. Haley woke up bright and early in the little-bit-cold house (although not bad) and enjoyed blueberries in her yogurt for a treat.
We waited for JT to get up by the fire, where it was warm.
This was our set up for the power outage – the warmest part of the house.
The power came back on Friday evening (phew, 25 hours is enough pioneer woman for me) and we went to Costco for something to do. The roads were clear but Costco’s power was out – they were running on generators or we would’ve been very disappointed.
Friday night our power went out again in the wind storm. People in the valleys are very concerned about flooding. Ugh. Today, Saturday, the power came back on in the late morning and we are feeling cozy again. It’s Jim’s last day of a 70+ hour work week and we are looking forward to some normalcy tomorrow! The last time we had a storm like this was 1996, and we set an all-time record for snow at SeaTac airport by a landslide.
Let’s not forget there are still thousands of people without power. The temperature has warmed up but the snow is slowly melting and everyone is worried where all this water will go. There are roads closed due to fallen trees and people are stuck in their neighborhoods. Seattle rarely gets weather like this so we are arguably unprepared, as a rule. We people complain that we cancel school for six inches of snow, it’s because we have one week every twenty years when it gets this bad. So there.
The Keene Family 