What a snow storm!!!

Our Jeep on the side of our garage!The large snow man created in the backyard. Mark wanted to be able to see it when we look out the window. Now Kate points out the snow man everytime she looks out.

The beginning of the snowman.
Shoveling the walkway to our front door. See? It looks like the Cat in the Hat!Kale puting snow on the window. Maybe they'll be cleaner now....
Mark shoveling the walk.
Ranger out enjoying the deep snow.
Taking a break to pose for the picture.


I can not believe how much snow we've gotten in the last month! It started right after New Year's and it seems like it hasn't stopped! Our last dumping was Sunday afternoon/evening.

We left church in the snow. We had hoped it would start after church so that we wouldn't have a problem getting to church and back home. It was pretty close to after church so it was fine. We went home and hunkered down knowing that we were about to get dumped on. And boy did it dump!

We lost power several times during the night and for part of the day on Monday. It can get pretty chilly without power! But we were fine, thankfully, and we had friends lined up to stay with if the power never came back on.


Mark was home on Monday due to the snow so we decided to have a fun snow day. We baked cookies and watched cartoons. Mark and I decided to tackle the driveway later when the kids went down for a nap. The snow was so deep there was no place for the kids to walk. That and the fact that Kate is not a snow kid. Kale loves the snow - Kate is cold after two minutes. Anyway, we finished baking cookies and looked out the window to see our wonderful neighbors snowblowing our driveway. Mark quickly went outside to help. That's how the playing in the deep, deep snow started. As I was taking pictures I was reminded of the book, The Cat in The Hat Comes Back. Don't know if you are familiar with the book (we love Dr. Suess here) but it's about a snow day and the Cat comes to play and of course messes everything up and then fixes it. But the picture of the deep snow and the tiny little path winding it's way up to the door - well, that's my house! We got another foot or so with this last storm and that's on top of the tons of snow from before. It's well over Mark's knees. And of course where we've been shoveling it's almost taller then Kale! More snow then we've seen in a long, long time.

A couple pictures

This picture was taken Christmas Eve at the church.
















Showing off their new towels. Kale is Optimus Prime of course and Kate is a princess. They love puting these on!

It's freezing down here!

Okay, I'm not gonna lie. Blogging is intimidating. I guess I'm insecure. Didn't think I had such a problem but it's coming out as I anticipate blogging. The irony is that only about 10 people even know this exists and it's still scary. I'm a weeny! Plus, I have bookmarked two friends' blogs that are amazing. They are up to date, witty, entertaining and wonderful. I love lurking (a new word I just learned from one of their blogs - it means to read the blog and not leave a comment - yup, that's me!). It's just so fun to read some of them. I can never think of something clever or fun to comment, so I don't. Again, I'm a weeny :)

My children just went down for a much needed nap. This week has been pretty insane - or at least I'm insane after this week. Kate's been sick with a cold all week. I've seen and wiped more then my fair share of disgusting snot, been coughed and sneezed on and whined at for 7 days now, and now have the same fabulous cold. I'm tired (fatigued as they call it in the prenatal world), sick and my patience is on empty. Combine that with only getting out of the house a total of 2 times this week and there's where the insanity comes in. I finally begged Mark to take us out for dinner last night (I say that sarcastically because there is absolutely no arm twisting with Mark for dinner out). It felt so wonderful to see the outside world!

It snowed again this week on top of the other foot or so of snow and ice on the ground so our driveway is an ice rink. I got stuck the other morning trying to get out to help a friends dog. Mark and I spent about a half hour after he got home from work trying to get the Rocket ship out. We both made the comment that we couldn't believe we made it over Wolf Creek an hour before they closed it for 3 days but we can't make it out of our driveway! Then last night on they way back from dinner, Mark got the van stuck. Thanks to our fabulous neighbor it didn't take all night to get out. I'm so excited to get more snow tomorrow!!!!!

I'm seven weeks pregnant now and still excited. I'm pretty sure this will be the longest pregnancy ever since I found out so very early. But that's okay. I was thrilled to be able to tell family while we were up in Denver. The other two times we got to share news over the phone. It's different in person. Fun. Kale is excited for the new baby. I'm actually impressed that he remembers there's still a baby in there. He wanted to name him George but is okay with Jack (that is if we have a boy...) I'm not sure he'll share his Transformers with the new one though.

Kale told me the other day - on another note - that his brain was slow and therefore his body was slow. This was after he broke open a confetti popper thing that we got for Christmas and spilled small confetti all over the living room. I was already at the end of my pathetic rope and said that he and Kate, who was a great help in spreading things around, were going to pick it all up by themselves. I gave them a plastic bag and left the room. I observed the chaos from the other room. Kale sat there slowly picking up the confetti one at a time. He finally said that his brain was slow and therefore his body was slow and this was such hard work. I said that I'm sure it was but when we make a mess we clean it up and maybe he'll think about the cleaning up before making the mess next time. Yeah right. But I'll say it anyway. He finally did get it all cleaned up - no thanks to Kate.

My darling daughter Kate has disappeared this past week. In her place is a whiny, snotty, clingy, dearly pathetic look alike. Love her just as much but I do miss my sweetheart. Well, honestly there were moments of the sweetheart mixed in with the rest. But I'm excited for when the cold clears up and leaves town. Mark has been working all week trying to get Kate addicted to princesses. An undertaking that I am less than thrilled with. But it's kept her entertained during trying times. Mark did an amazing job with Kale and Transformers, I'm sure Kate and princesses will happen. Bummer. I did my best.

One more final thrilling thing....we ordered a new stove and dishwasher last weekend. No more prehistoric appliances! I couldn't be more excited about appliances. Mark got us a new computer - an iMac - and he's thrilled with that. The computer is cool, but a new stove! That's my bag of chips. Whatever that means. Anyway, they should be delivered next week I'm hoping. I don't know how they'll get down my ice skating rink driveway but that's not my problem. As long as they get them here :)

We've had a very interesting last couple of days. We decided to brave the weather and threats of 1-4 feet of snow in southwestern Colorado in order to make it home from vacation. We'd had a wonderful time with family but were very much ready to be in our own beds. So Mark did his life size jigsaw puzzle and packed the rocket ship. I was very impressed with his packing skills. There's no way I could've gotten the loads of presents my deprived children got for Christmas in the car along with the dog and all our luggage. Amazing.

So we started the trek. The first two hours was snowy but fine. We cruised a long at a good pace. The next two hours were sunny and blue sky. No problems there. But then we entered South Fork...They sky was gray but didn't really bother us. We started up Wolf Creek Pass and saw several cars on their way down. No big deal we thought. And it was like stuff we had seen at first. Snow packed roads, snow falling, slow going. Fine. Then we came through the first tunnel and it started snowing harder. Around a bend we saw two snow plows stuck front to back in the middle of the road. Okay, so I'm thinking...let's turn around. If the snow plows can't make it then how in the world will our little minivan? But my husband ( I affectionately called him the idiot/genius) wanted to press on. He said, if we stop then we'll be stuck. So we went around the snowplows and kept going.

Just past the snow plows there were several cars pulled over to the side and were spinning their wheels going nowhere. I told Mark we should turn around then (I didn't realize how nervous I was). He wanted to go around the cars - on the other side of the road. I said we'd be killed but he didn't stop. He was right. I think if we had stopped and turned around we would've gotten stuck. We were totally committed at that point.

On we went up by Wolf Creek ski area and found a bus spinning it's wheels. Other full size trucks were pulling over. And still we chugged on.

After we reached the summit we began the very slow descent in very low gear. This was a stressful time because you weren't sure you were going to stop if you needed to. The road was hard to see. Remember, it wasn't plowed - the snow plows were stuck way back there. We finally were nearing the bottom, one of the last big turns. We came upon a bunch of cars all stopped on the side of the road. What in the world are they doing we were thinking. then the F-150 in front of us tried to stop and slid into another van who was already stopped. So why were they all stopped? Because there was a semi-truck jackknifed in the middle of the road! Okay so I'm freaking at this point. I'm telling Mark to stop and he's telling me we have to keep going or we'll run into someone else. He's right but I'm scared. So Mark's steering our little van around the front of the semi. I swear there was only just enough room for our van and no room for error. But we made it and Mark is my hero. Like I said, he's a idiot/genius.

The rest of the drive was uneventful (compared to Wolf Creek). It took us an hour and a half to get from Pagosa to our house. Thankfully we arrived safely. We were absolutely thrilled to be home.

Then the power went out. Oh great. We kept hoping it would turn back on but when 5:30am rolled around and the power still wasn't on we got nervous. We went to church but when we came home the power was still out. The house was at 55 degrees. Our house has never been that cold. After the kids' naps we packed up and went to Seth and Maria's house for dinner with the intention of sleeping at the church. Well my good friends (all of them) were not going to let that happen. I think we would've been tied and hung from the top of the church if we had done that. We really didn't mind and thought it would be great but it wasn't going to happen. :)

We had a blast though at the Waters' house. Absolutely wonderful.

The snow is so heavy it broke our tree in the front yard. Split it in half! Apparently that's why the power was out all over the county. I was bummed. It's our last good tree for goodness sakes!

I'm now writing from my couch in my nice warm house with plenty of electricity. Thank goodness! I'm praying it stays on all night. Now I just have to try and dig out my house from all the suitcases, presents and everything else. Fifteen minutes at a time....

Our fabulous vacation is almost over. It has really flown by. Spent some time with the Boulder and Longmont Palmers, as well as the Arvada Priddy's. It was so great to be able to just spend time talking and playing games. Even went sledding one day. That probably would've been more fun if we didn't have the kids. Kale was tired after 2 or 3 runs and Kate took her gloves off and did not see the logic that puting them back on would make her hands warm again. When I made her put them on she threw a fit unlike any I'd seen before. We had a little talk in the car....

Kale spilled the beans about my "big belly" (according to him). He was sitting with Gma and Gpa Palmer early Saturday morning and out of the blue announced that mama had a baby in her belly. They were surprised and not quite sure if it was true. I confirmed it to them later after hearing the story. My son the secret keeper :)

I have to say that it's a little scary being pregnant again. Actually it's a little scary being a mom I suppose. There are so many things that could go wrong. I know that I can handle anything that happens but it's definitely in the back of your mind. Whenever my body feels funny it's one of the first things I think of. Fortunately it's usually just gas:) Unfortunately for Mark I guess.

As I'm writing this, my little sweet daughter is dragging one of Gma Judy's bar stools over to the white board. I'm assuming so she can color. One of her favorite things to do with any human who is willing to help her. Yesterday Gma Judy caught her dragging her little folding chair over to the fridge, climbing up and playing with the water dispenser. She had a nice little puddle going and was happily splashing away. Once she saw Gma she quickly got down, wiped her hands off and vanished. She knew!