Snow and more snow and more snow and...

The groundhog saw his shadow earlier in the month. We're only suppose to have another six weeks of winter. It seems that winter at this point has long overstayed its welcome. This is when I start going a bit stir-crazy. This is when I really wish it was warm & spring-like. This is when two plus feet of snow can really, really annoy me. Really.

This morning we woke up to this....


My hubby is six feet tall. The snow is up to his knees. HIS KNEES! ::sigh:: I knew what this meant of course. Shoveling and lots of it. On the bright side, I know what I'll be doing for exercise today.

Once we were finished with school work we all headed outside to start the cleanup. I will say that we only have to clean up our yard area. We have to shovel a path to the back door and where the trash cans are kept, a path to the shed, a path connecting our place up to the driveway by Great-Grandpa's house, and where we park our vehicles. Other than that, my FIL plows out everything else. He also came over with his tractor today & scrapped out all the snow where the truck is usually parked so I didn't have to shovel that either.

I also delegated today. There was no way I was having all this "fun" by myself.

This was J's job....


He took it very seriously. The funny part here...the car is parked UNDER COVER! The snow blew so much that the whole car was just covered. It had at least 4-5 inches of snow on it. Yes, it could have been worse since the truck had over two feet on it. J did an excellent job clearning it all off.

This was N's job...


This child is such a hard worker. I'm really blessed by his work ethic. He actually looks forward to shoveling. He shovels the path between our house & Great-Grandpa's driveway. He goes through the snowbank that is now much taller than he is. It took him about 45 minutes to do this, but he did it. All by himself with no complaining & his little orange kid-size shovel.

J's other job...looking cute for a snow photo.

He jumped in to the snowbank. He's sitting down in all the new snow we just got.

Then we come to one of my jobs today....

Before...

I had made it this far. It took me about 45 minutes to get to this point. Then all the snow that had been on the roof has fallen off in front of the back steps. For safety reasons we keep this shoveled out in the winter time. I had to take a photo to show you the before & after.

After...and I still wasn't done.

Ben did shovel the path to the shed. He usually also shovels the path to the back steps as well but I took pity on him today due to the amount of snow needing to be moved so I did it for him.

And, yes, snow can be pretty...


But at this point I'm so ready for it to be gone. Especially when the banks are this high...

First Snow

My boys have been waiting very impatiently for the first snow to arrive this season. We've had a few teasing showers, but nothing that had any accumulation or lasted more than mere seconds...until today.

This morning they woke up to just about half an inch on the ground outside. They were begging me to head outside to play around 7am. I did tell them they had to wait for the sun to come up and for us to finish a bit of school.

Then they headed out to do this...


and this....

and some more of this...


I missed getting photos of the massive snowball fight they had amongst each other plus their aunt who is here visiting from Connecticut for the week.

As you can see we didn't have a ton of snow and the sleds weren't working all that well. Then the snow came back...and back...and left about 2-3 inches on the ground. They headed back out as soon as lunch was over for more sliding (which worked a bit better this time) & even a bigger and better snowball fight plus I'm seeing some mini-snowmen dotting the grounds.

The boys are thrilled. Me? Not so much. Now the weather gets to dictate what my outside activities will be. I'm suppose to go to our MOPS meeting tomorrow morning, but if the roads are still as yucky as they are now, that won't be happening. I find it annoying, but hey, I live in Maine. This is life. And it makes me appreciate spring all the more when it arrives.

Annie Girl

It's snowing here in Maine - again. It's been a really nutso winter in regards to the amount of snow we've been getting. Our first snow came mid-November & we never lost all of it at all. Today we ended up with about another 8-10 inches. ::sigh::

However, my boys love playing it & so does my dog, Annie. The only other "girl" in the house with me. She absolutely loves the snow. Her favorite thing is to chase the snow when we shovel. However, I don't let her do this when I'm shoveling as I accidentally clipped her once with the shovel. I will throw snowballs for her. Like I did today. It's hilarious to watch her.

Guess what I'm doing behind the camera? Yup, I have a snowball in my hand & I'm holding it over my head to get her attention. It's the only thing that worked to get her to look at me.

Hmmmm, where did it go? Are you going to throw me another one???

If I look long enough, I'm sure I can find the snowball you threw!

Fun Gym Time

We had a local gymnastic center open up for two hours on Thursday mornings for a free gym play time for homeschool students. Right now it will be free, but she plans to charge a small fee at some point in the future. I wasn't sure I wanted to go out - yet again this week - but my boys were really looking forward to it. I have to say - they had a BLAST! The photos didn't come out the best though due to the lighting & my little point & shoot digital doesn't compensate well.

There was this great little obstacle course set up. The kids had a great time on this. My middle son is hopping through the rings, J is on the blue mat & B is way up front on the tall red mat. They did a really fun warm up before she let them have at it. It was hilarious watching J trying to follow her instructions. I was busting a gut at one point. She had them all sitting on the large floor routine area with their legs spread wide. They were to walk their hands forward to stretch. J kept flopping on his belly & stretching out that way. Even after one her helpers put him back on his bottom & showed him how to do it, he still belly flopped. ::big grin::

I had no clue my lens was this dirty. I have a number of very spotty photos but I caught N in mid-jump so I had to post it. There is a long "tumble mat" (i.e. trampoline) that the kids had a great time running down & then jumping on to some large mats at the end.

I finally convinced J to crawl in to this so I could take his photo. It's not that he didn't want to crawl through it - it was the stopping part that was hard for him!

I also convinced J to take a turn on the tumbling tramp. I guess I don't have to tell you how much fun he had.

We stayed for 1-1/2 hours of the two hour time. My guys had a blast & wanted to come every day. I had to tell them that it was only on Thursdays. It did make for a long day for us though. The gym is a few times over. In good weather it's a 30 minute drive. With the snow covered roads by our house, it adds some time.

We headed in to the gym & spent the time there. Then I treated the boys to lunch at their absolutely favorite place to eat - McDonald's. From there I took them with me to do my grocery shopping. I typically go on either Thursday or Friday & I much prefer to do it in the morning so it's not overly packed.

Thursday night is also AWANA night for us so needless to say, it was a long day but they had a good time. I'll have to figure out a better schedule since I don't want to have them eating at McDonald's every week. I'll probably have to skip groceries from now on & move that to another day.

Speaking of snow covered roads - this is what one end of our road looks like now. We've had snow most of the days this week. All the trees are still thickly covered. It's pretty but I'm very eager for it to be GONE!

Global Warming? HA!

I know that living in Maine one should expect snow. Seriously, it's a northern climate after all. Many folks love coming here in the winter season to ski, snowmobile, snowshoe, & cross-country ski as well as many other cold weather fun.

Perhaps we've been spoiled over the last few years. Last season when someone mentioned "global warming" I might have jumped on board with them. After all I could remember it being so warm around Thanksgiving that one could go without a jacket. I remember most of the last few Christmas Days being rather more green than white.

I could somewhat believe in global warming. That is, until this season.

This is a photo of my road. I live on a dirt road. To get to a tarred part of it I drive either a mile one way or three miles in the opposite direction. It's 15 minutes to the post office - which is in the next town. It's 30 minutes to the closest grocery store of any size and a Wal-Mart. Needless to say we do live in the boonies. Although, it was great to just stop my truck in the middle of the road to snap this photo. But I digress....

We got about six inches of snow yesterday. That's not really a ton, but considering it was about the fourth or fifth storm in the month of December alone, it was enough. We had two storms in December that dropped over a foot each. Another left behind about eight inches. It's only January 1st & already I'm sick of snow!

We certainly had a white Christmas this year & the sleds & snow tubes that my boys got were well appreciated and already well used at this point.

I've been trying to find some data to back me up that Maine is certainly not part of global warming - at least not this season. I should have saved the time I wasted doing research on the Internet the other day & asked our resident weather man (great-grandpa).

He informed us today that last year at this time it was RAINING! We did have a lot of ice but not much snow. We didn't even receive our first snow of any significance until February 14th! I'm wondering at this point where we're going to be putting all the snow we're getting up to this point alone!

I went shopping today as cabin fever was starting to set in - it's only January 1st remember. I think it's going to be a long winter. I had been home for two days & knew I wouldn't be going anywhere tomorrow as hubby will need the 4-wheel drive truck to get to work. As I came home I stopped at the end of our driveway & snapped this photo...it's already snowing...again...we're going to get up to 16 INCHES! Anyone have a spare room they'd be willing to let me borrow for a few months this winter???

Big Snow!

Today we had a lot of snow. We had two dustings of snow last month. It was enough for the kids to sort of roll around in, but not be able to do a whole lot.

That was not the type of snow we had today. We had, what I call, "plow-able snow." My father-in-law worked for about a half hour this morning & this afternoon moving all the snow out of the way so we could use the driveway. Tomorrow the boys & I will be out shoveling paths around our place & the parking area for our truck. We probably ended up with about eight inches - total guess - but it's a lot.

I ran outside for a few minutes this afternoon to snap some photos. Our dog, Annie, seemed to really like the snow. She stayed out with the two older boys while they were playing. They were outside for close to two hours after lunch today.

B built a snow tunnel in one of the snowbanks my FIL plowed up. I didn't think he would be able to make it big enough to fit through, but soon after I came inside, that's exactly what happened. Both of them were able to wiggle through it. They then promptly jumped on top of it to destroy it. Silly boys.

My oldest boy

My middle son

Oh & yes, I did give them a snow day today from school. My other ulterior motive, it was my actual birthday & I planned to do nothing but play on the PC & enjoy the day - which I accomplished.