Snow Day 
(... must be time to blog again)

I realize that I have a pattern of blogging during February snow days.  It's one of the few times when I feel I have enough unscheduled time to indulge in writing about things.  Okay, maybe that's an overstatement, but I clearly have a pattern of doing this.  In fact, many of the posts over the past few years are weather related.

This storm is no record breaker for us.  It's a typical "nor'easter."  But this storm system really punched the south before heading up to us.  Atlanta and Spartanburg saw snow, ice or both.  What a mess.

This was to be the last day of school before the Presidents' Day week of vacation.  Timing is everything.  It means that I can skip over the Valentine's Day activities.  It rarely impacts my schedule, but the kids can become unglued by the whole thing, because of the parties and the card exchanging.  I'm a Scrooge.  True to form, I'm glad to skip all of that.

Abbie's getting over a concussion this week.  She got elbowed in the head last Saturday at cheer practice, coming out of a stunt.  We didn't take her to the emergency room until Monday evening, and although her only symptom had been a headache, the doctor told us to have her sit out of all physical activities for about a week.  At this point, the headache seems to be gone, so we expect that our doctor will clear her for PE and cheer when she sees him on Monday.

We have little chance to be in touch with Nate at this stage.  He called the house on Tuesday night to wish Kim happy birthday.  He said that he wouldn't be able to call on Wednesday since the group would be heading into the wilderness for a week of winter camping.  He told her not to worry; they changed the route for this outing to avoid the areas where there are currently avalanche warnings.  If he had been here when he told her that, I might have dope slapped him.  She doesn't seem to be too anxious about what he's doing, but she may be choosing not to think about it.  I'm trying not to bring it up.


The group has a Facebook page and they have posted some photos from the first event, ice climbing.  I'm hoping that whoever started this documenting will continue it through the whole experience.  I find it exciting to see updates about what he's doing.  The Facebook page also has a link to another site/application that seems to be tracking the location of the professor leading the group.  It's cool to be able to look at a map or satellite picture and see where they are...  if that is, in fact, what the app does.

Link to the Facebook page.
Link to the tracking tool.
Link to the Colorado Outward Bound Facebook page
Link to the Colorado Outward Bound Site.

We don't have a whole lot planned for the week off.  We have made a few appointments for doctor visits and tax preparation.  On Wednesday and Thursday, we'll be in NYC, just because we want to go and spend some time away.  Sounds like the weather will be milder on those days, so it should be easy to get around.  Abbie will take her driving test next Friday, so we'll also try to spend some time practicing each day.  She's driving very well, and I expect that she'll pass the test easily.  We just need to spend a little time practicing parking, but that's been very hard to do during the last few months, since it hard to find a quiet street where you can actually see the curb.

Cousins Camp 2013

July 6, 2013 at Camp Fowler

And now for something completely different...

Abbie had her wisdom teeth removed yesterday.

It was hard not to think about Nate.  I remember that he was so giddy in recovery that nurse started giggling too.  I had to tell him to stop trying to talk with gauze in his mouth, so he tried to write his questions and comments on post it notes.

By contrast, I think that the nurse was a little anxious when she came to get me after Abbie's surgery.  She told me that Abbie was a little weepy, but that she would probably stop crying pretty soon.  I'll take giddy any day.  Poor thing.  She just sobbed and sobbed.  At one point the nurse started using gauze to wipe away her tears.  By the time she reached the car she was crying less, but she barely moved and never spoke during the ride home.

I'm happy to report that she's doing much better.  She spent yesterday on the sofa with ice packs watching countless episodes of Say Yes to the Dress; Atlanta.

I'm glad to have this in the rear view mirror.

Snow, sort of.

Yesterday was a snow day.  I don't remember one quite like it.  There was no snow in the air or on the ground when I got up.  I got in the shower at 5:30, as usual, only to have Kim pop her head in minutes later to say that I had gotten the call.  Turns out that all three of us would be home for the day.  The reason was not the road conditions, but rather the forecast.

I decided to seize the moment and head to my classroom.  My biggest annual concert took place on Thursday evening.  I had dumped all of the instruments and equipment in the middle of my classroom when it was over.  The school cancellation meant that I'd get time in my room with no one else around.  Priceless.  As it turned out, I stayed for about four hours, and I got a lot of work done.  When I left school to head home, still no snow.

It finally started to flurry here at about noon.  By 3:00 PM, dismissal time, there wasn't even a coating of snow on the road.

This morning when I got up the snow had stopped.  I've already shoveled the driveway.  I think we have about 6 to 8 inches.  I realize, of course, that this storm was much worse to the east of us, and may still be bearing down on parts of the coast.  It just seems to me that we were so eager to include ourselves in the event.  The forecast was for snow, but not a huge amount, and not until late in the day on Friday.

Nevertheless, this was a great time to have a three day weekend.

The only real hassle that we're facing is related to Abbie's cheer leading team.  They are supposed to be at a competition today, but it was rescheduled for tomorrow.  Really?  Why can't the schools leave Sunday alone?

Nate turned 18 this week.  It seems that he's had a good week and that he got plenty of attention from his floor mates.  One post on facebook made me laugh.  Someone from his floor posted something like, "You may be getting older, but you're still a baby."  Several people call him Baby Nate.  The "Baby" part is really just a way of distinguishing him from the other Nate, but it seems that it's going to stick for awhile.  I'm interested to see how long it lasts.

He says that he was wakened on his birthday by someone pounding on his door.  He yelled two or three times to tell  the person to come in.  Finally he got up and threw the door open and discovered it was the "public safety" folks.  They had decided to do a fire inspection that morning, and said that Nate's room was going to be written up.  The reason was that during the night Nate's floor mates had decorated the hallway around his door.  It seems that his friends had violated some of the fire regulations.  The public safety folks decided to give him just a warning and told Nate that he needed to have the area cleaned up by the end of the day.  How decent.  Nate seemed to think it was funny and a good story.