Literally ... we are chilling out this winter! It's still very cold here in our area. Mostly in the 20's. Just this morning, I said to Mike that it's hard to believe that we actually have AC in this house for other seasons. It's been so cold and we are so blessed to have a warm house!!! I was so surprised at how the tree's and ice are still hanging on thick down in my parents neighborhood! I went to Walmart for a few things and wanted to make a stop at mom's to check if they had their electric back yet on Friday. No electric ... still. Driving up the road and getting on top of the hill, I just couldn't believe it how the ice was still just hanging on to each struggling branch. Lot's of people have branches and tree's down. The ice looked beautiful but I can't imagine how much Spring clean up it will take from this ice storm. (Psst ... it is only 6 more weeks till Spring!!! Happy dance!!!) There are still so many people in that area that are out of electric.
Friday night we had three extra children in our house. Ryan, Tyler & Morgan came for supper and for the night. Our children always have so much fun with them and we enjoyed having them here! Because we are Olympic fans, we watched some of that later in the evening. Amazing talents going on there in Sochi!
Saturday was a day at home preparing food for our host family on Sunday and getting the group of hungry kids food all day long. :) The homemade waffles got eaten up pretty fast. Mike & I worked together outside a bit in the afternoon cleaning up branches that fell from our trees. Too many pine branches are down! We have lots of pine trees in the back yard but my favorite are the soft needle kind. Those are the ones that seemed to break off because the snow/ice hung on to the longer needles. It did feel good to do something outside though! That night Mike's parents came over for more games of Settlers. I wish I could say that I won at least one game ... but no. Sigh.
Sunday was a good day at church. The kids decorated Valentine cookies in their class. Then we had a surprise 70th birthday party for HK after Sunday School. Some of their children came to surprise them and that was so much fun seeing them again and chatting. We missed those that couldn't be there! :) Eating cake and ice cream and drinking tea and lemonade is not something we do often before lunch, but hey, it is was offered and it was a treat!
We came home to quickly heat up a big pot of potato soup and finish fixing my large sandwich rings that I baked. We were host family and really had a great time with the families that came for lunch! Matt and Lena ended up staying for the whole day and after beating them with the bully in Rook, they left at 11 last night. It was fun!
We were surprised when we looked out the window last evening and saw it snowing again. (Not sure why that should be much of a surprise this winter, but it was. :) ) We got another fresh snow that brought two more inches.
The kids are in school today. I have laundry going. The house is cleaned up from our weekend events. Mom and Jody and the twins made a drop in and it was good to catch up on their fun trip to Florida last week. The kids will be delighted when they see the strawberries that Jody gave us from Florida!!! Thanks! Celine and Sophia are here and playing with Ashlyn!
Looking ahead at my week, I hope it flies by quickly!!! We have a family vacation on our minds and are really looking forward to it!!! It will be hair cut appointments, a basketball game, and even a surprise Valentine Dinner to go to. (Which by the way we are thrilled about! I don't know who is planning it or even where we are going. We got a card through the mail with the invitation. We were told in the card that we will be notified the place sometime before Wednesday. I love these type of surprises and gifts!!! I have no idea who will be there but we will be have a dinner and games and prizes. Fun!!!) We will also be packing up and heading for warmer weather by the weekend!
Think Spring if you are feeling house bound. It really is only 6 weeks away! I can't wait to dig in the dirt. Plant the garden. Feel the Spring weather! Be outside! Go yard saleing!!! And say good bye to Winter! But ... for today I will be staying warm inside. I will drink something hot. I will enjoy leftover warm soup. I will squint my eyes when I look outside because the frozen snow is so bright!
Enjoy today.
