Our First Snow Day!

This morning was all figured out.  The boys had a dentist appointment at 8:30.  I would get up and take them, drop them at school after their teeth were squeaky clean :), then head to the gym.  Keira would stay home and catch the bus so she wouldn't be late for school. Alex's birthday snack was all ready.  Movies to return to the library.  Grocery list all made out.

But then Mother Nature decided to drop in and leave a few inches of snow on the ground.  I got up at 7:15 ... okay 7:20 ... and saw that the roads were snow covered.

Hmmm, I thought, no phone call today.  The voice mail light wasn't blinking.  Doug is working midnight shift so his phone wasn't here to wake us up like last week. 

So online I go to find an email from Froggy stating that we had a 2-hour delay.  My sleepy brain had a take a few minutes to process.  The only thing that would really change would be my trip to the gym.  I woke Keira up to tell her she didn't need to get up.  Hey, why should she get to sleep in when the rest of us were already up?  :)  I also told her that I would still be taking the boys to the dentist and would be back shortly.  

However, around 7:45 the phone rang.  The dentist's secretary called to reschedule the boys' appointments.  It seemed the dentist was having difficulty getting to the office.  Yay!  We rescheduled for Thursday morning and I hung up the phone relieved that I didn't have to drive on the slippery roads.  I live on a main road so I have a pretty good judgement of how the roads are on days like this.  This morning they didn't look so hot.  And the fact that the cars were driving about 10 mph past my house when they are normally running about 50 (in a 40 mph speed zone, mind you) made me really happy I didn't have to go anywhere.  At least not yet.

School delays mean school starts at 11:00 for Alex and 11:15 for Keira and Nick.  Keira and Nick can arrive 30 minutes early so I usually drive them on preschool days so Alex isn't so late.  That was now the plan.

I told the kids I was going to go outside and start sweeping/shoveling the driveway.  The boys wanted to go out and play, so we bundled up and out we went.  Keira joined us shortly afterward.  I guess she couldn't get back to sleep with all the noise the boys were making.  Doug wasn't home yet because he had physical therapy at 8:00 which usually takes about 1.5 hours.

Between the four of us, we got the driveway all cleaned out.  I wore my heart rate monitor just out of curiousity - to see how many calories I would burn shoveling.  In just over an hour of cleaning out the snow I burned almost 600 calories!  No need for the gym today!  Although my back will probably be a little achy tomorrow.

Once back inside I hopped onto Facebook to see what was happening with my "friends".  One girl had a comment about not being ready for a snow day yet.  I was like what?!  So I checked and sure enough, school had been closed for the day.

Needless to say the kids were pumped!  I was surprised that Alex wasn't upset since today we were taking a snack to preschool to celebrate his birthday.  The kids will be eating Rice Krispie treats for the next couple days (they don't last more than a few days).  And I will have to make another snack for Wednesday.

The kids had a lot of fun playing in the first "big" snow of the year.  And I got a few pictures of them ... and of some of the birds that were visiting my feeder.

Honey won't ride on the snow tube.  Instead she prefers to bite at the kids as they ride down the hill.  :)  She doesn't bite hard though ... just playful.

I love the look of pure joy and their faces!  Even if this isn't the greatest picture.

Pausing to pose for mom.  It was snowing pretty hard while we were out.  Made it interesting to take pictures.

Nick insists on wearing this orange hat that is way too big for him.  He ends up with it covering his eyes most of the time.  He also insists in eating snow the entire time he is outside.

This little bird was waiting ... making sure I wasn't going to do anything ... before it went to get a bite to eat from my feeder.  I got pretty close - about 8 feet away.  That was pretty cool!

Honey just loves the snow!  She was rolling around in it earlier.  And she eats a lot too.

This is the White-breasted Nuthatch that has been hanging around my feeder.

A female cardinal hiding in my maple tree.  Another picture can be seen on my Project 365 blog.

I know this picture is very blurry.  It was getting dark and I had to use such a slow shutter speed (1/6s).  Plus I was taking the picture through Keira's bedroom window.  But I was excited to see a male cardinal having a snack at my feeder!  I'm hoping for many more chances to photograph them this winter.  They are so gorgeous!

If the snow continues, we will probably have at least a 2-hour delay tomorrow.  And more opportunities for playing in the snow.  :)

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