Snowday Story in Pictures

Once upon a time, some children lived in a frozen land where they experienced way too many snow days. Since they were not worn out from going to school, their parents ordered challenged them to go outside and build snowmen. So they did. Two boys were the first to leave the warmth of the house and brave the cold outdoors - one in shorts and the other in pajamas.

But soon, one boy got distracted because there was a tree.

That is all it took.

Just a tree that was.

The other kids were upset and decided to pelt Distracted Boy with snowballs.

Distracted Boy pelted back.















But it didn't matter because there was still a tree.

And that is all it took.

Blue Valentine Redo

Although we laughed our way through our Valentine's Day date
that we hated, our sweet daughter, Makenna, was not okay with that. She gave us a redo.

She picked out songs and played them for us as we danced in the kitchen, and then she presented us with tickets to see the Blue Man Group.

Because we are us and not regular people, we arrived to the show with only one minute to spare. We ran through the doors and showed the ticket warden our tickets. She then yelled, "We've got latecomers! They'll never get to their seats in time!!" Then another ticket warden rushed us across the front of the stage to the opposite side of the auditorium, which is where our seats were located. Then we were told to go directly to our seats and sit as quickly as humans are able to do so.

The show began with humor and continued on with musical gymnastics and impressive percussion. The Blue Men were quite funny, and we laughed for most of the show. Then, at the end, about ten gigantic, cloth balls were brought onto the stage. They began white, but changed colors as they were drummed upon. Then they were shoved off of the stage and into the audience, where we bounced the balls, which kept changing their color, back and forth across the people.

Then we returned home to our wonderful children and helped them finish up their homework, gave a sick one some cold medicine, and tucked them all into bed. And it was no less fun. 

Hated Valentines

It's hard to squeeze a sweet Valentines Date into the parenting of four teenagers. But we made a valiant effort. I prepared food for the kids to scarf down, hopefully without too much damage to the kitchen. I showered and applied make-up and was actually ready by the time my dear husband was to be done working.

But it snowed. Which meant Mike had to plow. Which meant he was late getting home.

"Should we leave?" he asked, still in his work clothes.
"Well, we missed our reservations, so we will have a hard time finding a restaurant that doesn't have a huge wait."
"We could go to the movie first," he suggested.
"The movie is apparently horrible," I said quietly, hating to impart more bad news.
"How do you know?"
"The reviews are the lowest I've ever seen, and my friends who saw it told me they hated it."

We both looked at each other with frustration and dread. It was obvious we were both thinking we should just give up and stay home. The universe had spoken.

"I don't think we should give in, dang it," Mike stated. "It's Valentine's Day, and we are going to celebrate love no matter what."
"Okay," I said encouraged.
"But what do you want to do?"
"Let's just go to the bad movie that we are going to hate," I said. "In fact, let's make that the theme of the date. Everything we do has to be something we hate."

So we went to the mall because it was crowded and we hate that. We walked in the cold from the very back of the parking lot which was terrible.

"Two of us," Mike told the hostess at the Cheesecake Factory, where they recently stopped serving the only kind of cheesecake I've ever liked.
"It will be at least forty-five minutes before a table is open," the hostess said with a frown.
"Great!" We said, "We hate waiting!"

We walked around the crowded mall and laughed as we kept getting separated from each other. We ordered food we thought we wouldn't like, and laughed when we actually loved it. And we watched the movie, which really was terrible.

Halfway through the movie Mike started sneezing and coughing. By the end of the movie he was shivering and sweating at the same time. He took the theme of the date and really went with it. He was asleep before I drove into the garage, and slept until lunch the next day.

What a Valentine I've got!

New York

I recently had the great fortune to travel to New York with my daughter, my dad, and my brother. We hit the ground running and never stopped. Even on the second day, when New York was hit by a blizzard, we kept running. We sloshed through icy puddles from dawn until way too late. We returned to the hotel three times to wring out our socks in the shower and dry our shoes with my hairdryer.

We visited Times Square on the eve of the Superbowl, ate from street vendors, climbed to the top of the Empire State building, saw a terrible movie at an artsy theater, conquered the subway system, visited the major sights, and ended each day with treats at an Italian bakery. Yes, treats each day.

Looking at our list we realized the only thing we hadn't experienced was a Broadway play. We were newly dry in our hairdryer blown shoes, and I had borrowed a pair of socks from my dad and pulled them up to my knees. We decided on one play we were all willing to see and pulled our scarves around our heads as we set out in the worst of the blizzard to obtain tickets. On the train we discussed it and decided we only wanted to buy the tickets if we could find a good deal and if four tickets were available together to the one and only play we had all agreed on. By the time we got to the discount ticket booth, we were soggy, shivering, and wiping the drips from our wet hair off of our cheeks before they froze there.

"Hi," I said to the man behind the glass at the ticket booth. "What do you have available for tonight?"
He told me that they had four tickets to the play we wanted to see and they were fifty percent off.
"Hmm," I told him. And then I walked away.

"Did you get the tickets?" Dad asked.
"I don't think I'm a Broadway person," I said.
"I would hate every minute of it," he said.
"I don't care if we go or not," Emery said.
"I fell asleep in the last two Broadway plays I tried to watch," my brother told me.

So we left empty handed and shivered ourselves to the Brooklyn Bridge instead and ended up eating at Katz's Deli where we were treated like tourists by our New York waiter. It was perfect.

With blisters on our feet and wet clothes shoved into our carry-ons, we boarded our plane home. Home was experiencing a severe blizzard, and I felt like an aeronautical cowboy as we landed in a windy whiteout.

I wouldn't change a thing about it.

Thank you New York!