Today stunk

5 inches of heavy, wet, craptastic snow.  Howling winds up to 50 mph.  Power lines down.  Internet sporadic.  Radio stations off the air.  Huge lake sized puddles in the street.  Sloppy sludgy thick junk in the streets.  Roads closed.  Boo.

Grace went over to her friend Carli's today for the afternoon & evening.  They are both the youngest of 4 kids, so they know how to play the game :).  Grace bought her first ever issue of Tiger Beat at the store yesterday, and she had to call Carli last night to talk about it.  They were having a deep conversation about whether Justin Bieber or Taylor Lautner were cuter.  And about what they were going to do at Carli's the next day.  And they talked for 58 1/2 minutes.  These girlies are 7 years old.  I can see a cell phone in Grace's near future.  Remember when we used to have 'teen lines' when we were young?  Not me of course, because I was deprived (ha...or socially stunted, one of the two), but lots of my friends did. 

Beautiful weather

We went to the park yesterday afternoon...the temp on the Applebee's sign said 77, but I'm not sure it was quite that warm.  A few pics from the park!

There are still mounds of snow here and there, despite the nice weather.  This was the dirty gross pile in the parking lot of the park.

4th grade recorder concert

Tonight was Ben's recorder concert.  Oh my aching ears :).  Rich was working, but Matt, Tyler and Grace came with me to watch it.  Luckily for Grace, her friend Lizzie was there to have her Girl Scout meeting...her mom is the leader and they invited Grace to sit in.  So does Grace want to be a Girl Scout now?  Of course!  I am secretly NOT looking forward to Girl Scout activities, but I guess we'll give it a go.  Anyhow, back to the recorder!  They actually did played pretty well, I was pleasantly surprised that it wasn't overly screechy.  Ben had a solo!  He played "Pretzels".  His solo was the first and he did really well, we were proud!  You'll notice his intense recorder face in the pics...he furrowed his brow and was very serious.

there was also an art show..they had a visiting artist last week and the pic above is Ben holding his picture.  It was really pretty up close!

The big day has finally come!

I ordered that tooth fairy pillow just in time, because Grace lost her first tooth today!!!!!  She was eating a strawberry (? Not sure how that could do anything?) at lunch at school and felt it crack and get really loose.  So one of the first grade teachers (apparently she is the designated first grade tooth puller) pulled it out the rest of the way. Everyone always wants to lose a tooth at school because you get your name on the tooth chart and get a little plastic tooth box. 

Have I mentioned how excited she is?  She said "Mom, in this picture I want to make the "YESSS" move!".

I asked her how much she thought the tooth fairy would bring her.  She said $10.  Hmmm...does the tooth fairy know there is a recession? 

On a side note, Matt's track career lasted one day.  He decided it wasn't for him (which I probably could have told him, but it was good that he tried!!).

Really scary

This evening we were watching Dancing With the Stars in our room while Ben was watching Harry Potter in the living room.  He came running in our room saying he saw a big flash over by the wall.  It turns out he did perhaps the scariest thing he's ever done in his mischievious life.....he put a penny between a night light and the outlet cover, causing a big flash.  We ran out to the LR and Rich took a couple of plastic utensils and pulled the night light out, causing lots of sparks and electrical flashes.  SCARY!  Ben was very upset and said it was 'an accident', but we all know it was his curiosity and lack of impulse control that led him to it.  It melted the penny (which you can see at the bottom of the night light prongs).  It makes my stomach hurt just looking at it!

A North Dakota funny

Forgot to post this yesterday.  Just in case you need to pick up some wildlife art with your liquor, head on over to Paul's Ponderosa Liquor and Wildlife Gallery in Dickinson, North Dakota!  That's really a place, and it cracked me up!  It reminds me of Peterson-Wahleen-Knox Funeral Home and Furniture Store in Woodhull, Illinois LOL!

And I've come up with a list of my top 4 North Dakota annoyances:

1.  The fact that nothing is open here on Sundays before noon.  Except for the grocery store.  But no stores like Target or Wal-Mart, etc.  It's some weird law I guess.

2.  The fact that there are no chain pharmacies allowed in this state.  No Walgreens, no pharmacies in Target or Wal-Mart, etc.  Another stupid law....something to do with small pharmacies and ownership rights. 

3.  The fact that there are many unregulated intersections in the residential neighborhoods.  Meaning that a lot of cross-streets around here don't have stop or yield signs, so you have to be really careful at each intersection.  Don't like it.

4.  I can't find a car wash to save my life.  There are a few one stall crummy car washes at a convenience store here and there, but I went to 4 convenience stores today and none of the car washes were in working order.  I finally found one, but where is the Super Wash and Splash Car Wash with mega-automatic stalls when you need it?  Don't people enjoy clean cars here?  I looked in the phone book and saw 2 listed as Laundromat & Car Wash, but they ended up being those self-serve washes.  Maybe I need to start my own Splash franchise?

Lotsa snow

We went over to Grandpa Jim's this weekend armed with the snowblower and 2 shovels to see if we could make a dent in his driveway.  Um, no.  The little snowblower wasn't about to get any of that snow gone...it was hip deep in a lot of places, and icy hard.  So hard that Grandpa's new truck got stuck at the end of the driveway.  He got pulled out today by a kind neighbor (and we use the term 'neighbor' loosely....this guy lives about 5 miles away...that's actually a pretty close neighbor there!), so has the use of his truck back.  After going to church this morning, we headed back without helping a whole lot!  Had a good lunch at church though!

Not sure if it comes out in this pic, but the snow IS pretty and sparkly! 

I'm starting to see peeks of the grass in our yard!  It was beautiful today, I think it was in the 50's.  Still have way too much snow on the ground.  Our backyard is insane.....when I was out on the deck today I counted *33* webkinz and stuffed animals that the dogs have drug out there over the winter.  It will be an interesting clean up out there, it will probably take us several hours to get all the dog surprises gone!