Yep, we're still here

General apologies for the huge gaps between posts. This fall seems to be busier than most. Here are a few cute stories we missed sharing. Hopefully I can add some pictures tonight.

This morning in the car, Colleen was singing a song for her preschool Christmas show, over and over. Robert was annoyed and "asked" her to stop. I reminded him that just a couple weeks ago he was singing his Thanksgiving songs (pictured at performance) and how it annoyed Elizabeth at the time. I asked him if he remembered what I said to her. He said with a scowl, "That I was definitely allowed to practice singing. I hate it when you're right, Mom."

Colleen was complaining about the sun being in her eyes in the car. I said that we could bring her sunglasses next time. She said, "My sunglasses don't work. The sun is boiling my blood! Do something!" Evidently her old sunglasses didn't cover enough of her eyes and would let the sun through. So the next time we were at Target we found these huge bug-eye sunglasses. Now the sun doesn't boil her eyes anymore.

Besides working extremely hard at school and earning terrific grades to prove it, the past few weeks for Elizabeth have been about The Birthday. Twelve years old last Tuesday. Colleen told everyone at preschool - "yesterday she was eleven and today she is twelve." Her birth"day" was actually drawn out over a couple of weeks, starting with Nonna taking her and a friend, Jack, to a wonderful performance of The Wizard of Oz at Hopkins High School. She had a blast; there were actual flying monkeys. Then two books from Mom and Dad that she just couldn't wait 5 days until her birthday to read so she got them early. Then her actual birthday with a package from Nanny (beautiful Guardian Angel that now hangs over her bed) and cupcakes with the special-made cinnamon butter cream frosting. Then from the St. Paul Colemans she got "awesome" Smencils and cold hard cash to go toward her new desk chair (note to self: get E to Ikea!). I confess that I succumbed to the ease of using the Thanksgiving gathering for the official "Happy Birthday!" where she (and others I hope) enjoyed her favorite Pineapple Mallow Pie (thank you to Betty Crocker and to Nonna for the loan of Betty Crocker) and got the coveted Star Trek reboot DVD from Uncle Ryan. She and Robert watched it 3 times the next day. With all the extras and commentary, they watched it practically all day.

We took advantage of our Friday off to clear some more boxes from the living and dining room so more and more it looks like we live her permanently. It's a great feeling to get the number of boxes down to regular storage, not moving boxes. Our garage is ridiculously large and my next big project is to organize the storage in there.

On an unrelated note - hey, where's the snow? The weather is very un-Minnesota-like at the moment and we're getting nervous about Christmas. Robert asked me after Thanksgiving, "Is it possible that we won't have a white Christmas?!"

Everything but Rosebud

I took the kids sledding this morning.

They've been bugging me and Cate for a sledding trip all season. Our sledding opportunities are fairly limited by sunlight and school hours, and by, frankly, our own lack of desire to take the kids sledding. That's because everyone loves to go down hill and nobody loves to go back up.

This morning was the harmonic convergence, however. I woke up in a good mood, though maybe not overly rested. It was warm today, and dry, so we weren't going to get snowed or rained on and we had 40-degree temperatures or so.

We had four people and three sleds, but then again, Colleen isn't ready to go sledding alone. Elizabeth and Robert, though, definitely are! See the video:



Now, like most sledding trips, this one seemed doomed to disaster. But it wasn't until our last trip down the hill that we stopped courting it and it found us.

Silly us. We decided we would go down the hill three sleds abreast, starting from the top of the hill. There are two sledding runs, with a tree and a stump in the middle. I found us drifting toward the left, toward the tree, and tried to slide us even further left to get around it. But, well, not so much. All three of us hit the tree, and hit it hard. I twisted to try to take the brunt of it and I flipped over the stump. So did Elizabeth, landing square on her back in pain. Robert lost a boot but quickly gave me a thumbs-up.

Elizabeth has a nice big scrape on her back and another one near her elbow. Robert has a scrape and a bump on his forehead. My tailbone and right arm are a little sore.

Colleen wasn't affected -- we didn't take her down on that run. I needed an arm to hold onto her when we went down the hill and that didn't mesh with our plan.

But we had a great time. Next time we'll choose a less-challenging hill.

Maybe.

I'd say they're acclimated

It's been another pretty nice day around here today, reminding me of a story Cate told about a warm day earlier in the week.

Robert was daring to go outside without a hat or gloves. It was a really warm day, up to about 40 when it was all said and done. Cate was telling him he needed to finished getting dressed to go outside.

"After all," I was told, "it's 30 degrees out!"

Robert gives a quizzical look at Cate, and says, "minus?"

Robert clearly knows the difference between 30 and minus-30 degrees.

Sheesh -- so cold!

It's been below zero essentially all week. When we get down into the minus-teens (and it was minus-20 this morning), some things tend to change. Some tales from the cold:

I drove the car this afternoon. Had it parked out in a sunny spot so it could get the maximum non-frozenness possible, not that it helped much. Most of the winter I could start the car and get out, scrape off the windshield while the car ran and the engine came up to speed, but not today. While the engine cranked and turned over without incident, I couldn't put it in neutral without it killing.

With a minimum of warmup, the gear shift was pretty stiff. Combine that with the stiff feet in the cold and it's not a great drive.

Amazingly, even at minus-10 degrees, there are still patches of water on the streets in the mid-afternoon in spots. Making a note so I don't drive down those streets after it refreezes.

Went through the drive-thru teller at the bank. Rolled down the window -- with some hesitation -- to talk to the teller, and she asked, "How are you today, other than cold?" I answered, "That's pretty much it, just cold."

Last night I walked to choir practice, two and a half blocks away, for this very reason. I figured the car wouldn't even begin to get warm or the stick get unstuck. I felt great about the decision at 6:15 p.m., walking there. Walking back at 8:30, however, was a different story.

Tomorrow, it's supposed to get above zero. I'll probably work from the office instead of home. But we'll see.

Feel the chill

Yesterday I should've listened to my instincts and stayed home. I'd told myself at the beginning of the winter that I would take advantage of my ability to work from home if it was cold out, and yesterday it was on the verge of being really cold. But I knew that it was only going to get worse, so I decided to suck it up and drive to work.

I was immediately regretting not asking for a spot in the garage the night before, since one was open, and was cursing scraping off the windshield.

I got about 10 blocks from the house when my back windshield basically shattered. It left a hole over about a tenth of the window, with the rest of it hairline cracked. I got out of the car (it was at a stoplight), looked in the hole and saw nothing that might have been thrown through it or could have fallen from a building. The guy in the truck behind me had no idea. (And he wasn't holding a rifle or anything.)

All I could think of was that the glass was simply tired of being heated and frozen twice a day this winter and gave out from the stress.

Turned around and limped home on back streets at about 20 mph, while the glass fell into the back seat piece by piece. (Commuting to work, no kids in the back seat, just my lunch.)

Today, new glass, and 15 degrees below zero when I left for work. (Yes, that's Fahrenheit.) Felt the moisture in my nostrils freeze within about 10 seconds. The car hesitated once but turned over. The thing has 110,000 miles on it and has been outside all winter but has yet to fail me on startup.

The trick today -- after starting the car and cleaning it off, I went back inside to trade off for a dry and warm pair of gloves. Much, much better.

Cate drove the kids to school today so they didn't have to wait for the bus. At least they start at 9:30 instead of 7:30.

It's snowing!

The day has finally arrived -- the first snow flurries of winter. And the kids are excited, at least a little bit.

As Elizabeth said: "It was cold, and it was wet, and there wasn't really a lot of it."

Obviously, the flurries aren't accumulating anywhere and there won't be any sledding or snowball fights today, but at least it's something. The kids were all standing at the kitchen windows staring, then had a sudden interest in playing outside, for some reason.

As I write this, Elizabeth has gone back outside to document it. You may have to click on the photo to get the larger version to actually see the snow coming down.