The Snow May Have Won...But the Spiders Did Not

The snow blew us a knock-out this weekend. (And I didn't even have time to post pictures from last weekend's snowstorm.) This was the third major snowstorm this winter. The next one is tomorrow...wish us luck! I know this is no big deal to our friends out West, but this is an unusually moist (aka record-setting) winter for those of us on the East coast...especially for Central Virginia. It started Friday afternoon. And it was a wet snow. So it stuck to all of the trees. And if any of you have been to Virginia, you know how many trees there are. Around 11PM, Karen and I heard chainsaws. We peeked outside to see our HOA dollars hard at work. Apparently, a few trees had fallen down across the street and they were clearing the road. We thought little of it and went to bed.

On Saturday, Mark, Anya, and James enjoyed several hours in the snow. I was tired of watching the snow pile up on the driveway, so I went out for my first round of shoveling...knowing that I would have to shovel again once the snow stopped. I think Anya was trying the karate kid crane kick in the background.

Mark found a good pile of snow to sit on as he enjoyed a homemade snow treat.

Then Anya and James had to one-up him and grab a bigger chunk of snow. To appreciate the "chunk of snow" comment, you need to realize that we still had about 8-10 inches of snow left on the ground from last weekend. Then we added about 6 more inches of snow before getting to a real slushy/sleety kind of wintry mix for a few inches before turning back to snow for the last 4-6 inches. So there was snow, slush, and more snow. It was all so wet that you could easily pick up chunks of snow. On one hand, it made it easier to shovel because you could remove larger sections at one time. On the other hand, the shovel contained 15-20 pounds of snow with each back-breaking heave. :)

After a little snow snack, James thought it would be a good idea to lie down and roll around. Mark and Anya were quick to follow his lead.

I think the blob in the center is James. I'm not sure what caught his interest there. Anya and Mark are the other blob just a little further down near the end of our driveway. Are there any sympathetic readers out there who realize how incredibly long this driveway is...especially when there is a foot or more of snow...and considering that I've already done this twice before this winter? Anyone?

In all the times our kids played in snow while we lived in Illinois, we never had to caution them to watch for falling trees. But I heard a loud crack and then looked to my left and saw this:

Yep, I literally watched this pine tree fall. Fortunately, it fell towards the road and was two houses down. But I warned the kids that if they heard a loud crack, to run straight for the house. We heard several more trees fall during the day. This picture below is of the street almost directly in front of our house. You wouldn't be able to tell it was a street were it not for the clearing between all the trees. There were at least 3 large trees that fell on this street.

And trees falling during a winter storm in Virginia means no power. We've been fortunate in the past with any kind of storm while we've lived here. But our luck ran out. Saturday morning our power went out. We toughed it out Saturday night. Here's a picture of Eliza bundled up for bed. By the time we woke up Sunday morning, the house was a chilly 48 degrees.

Sunday mid-morning, we packed up a suitcase and piled in the van to go for a drive and get warm. We drove around the neighborhood and enjoyed some picturesque views. After several phone calls, we finally found a hotel that had rooms still available and spent the night away from home. If it were just Karen and I, we could have managed. But little hands don't know how to stay warm and we couldn't bare to see Luke and Peter with rosy cheeks and red hands in our house anymore.

We came back to the house Monday morning only to find the power was still out. It was now 42 degrees in the house and I was worried about pipes freezing. So the snow may have won, but the spiders didn't! Anyone who knows me, knows my sincere and intense fear of spiders. Our water shut-off valve is in our crawl space...which we have not gone in since we moved here two years ago. I removed the door to the crawl space and let out a little gasp. Ok...it was a shrill...ok, ok...it was a blood-curdling shrill almost to the point of fainting. Behind the door to the crawl space were thousands of interwoven webs. And on those webs were little spiders with the fat abdomens (I don't know which is worse - fat abdomens on spiders or hairy spiders...it's a toss up in my book). It's enough to make any grown man weak in the knees. But Karen was brave. :) She took the broom and cleared an opening. And yes, I was braver. I took that broom and cleared it a second, third, and fourth time. :) Then, with much encouragement from Karen, I crawled into the dark to save my family. Don't mock me. I had to imagine my family was dying in order to muster up enough courage to go into that crawl space. Too bad I don't have the pictures to prove it. Karen gave me a hard enough time just to go grab the camera for this photo-op. At the time, I don't think she was amused. But I assured her it would make for a great story.

So...the snow may have won by knocking out our power and helping us realize how unprepared we were for such an emergency, but the spiders did not. I showed them who would laugh last. I rose to the occasion and the spiders didn't stand a chance. And you know what? All of the stress and frustration this weekend caused was totally worth it. Because I was able to prove to myself that I can push through the fear of spiders when I really need to...and because we've been able to wake up to this:

So we're ready for one more storm tomorrow. But hopefully we can avoid the crawl space this time.

The Dreaded Question

I cannot even recall how many times I have been asked this

"So, How's home schooling going? What are you guys learning?"

Yeah, um, lately especially all we have been able to do is stutter through something about taking a lot of breaks. Life happens. Most of the time I deal pretty well with that, but sometimes I get to feeling really guilty because I think of everything my kids don't know. As luck would have it the next thought to follow the guilty feeling one is a reminder that they are in fact learning all the time, and are making great leaps and bounds very much without my interference. Besides, who's to say what each of them actually needs to know?

Anyway, here is a bit of what we HAVE done lately. I figured one childhood rite of passage is making a shoebox diorama. I let them pick anything they wanted and they came up with some good stuff. Here is Mark's, surprise-it's Star Wars related:) Anya is a true girly girl, horse loving and all. I think they are grouped by family, not sure where she got such a vital need for family units, but it's a great perspective to have.

James, my James. If ever there were a child who thinks outside the box (yes, I SO meant that pun) it would be him. He did a 3d model of our house, complete with all the snow on the ground outside right now. I think the cowboy and marshall by the house are David and I, while the cowboy and Daniel Boone looking fellow are Mark and Anya playing in the snow. Apparently we need more lincoln log figures, as the rest of the family had to be proclaimed "inside the house."

To All Knuttis: Some things are genetic, don't know why or how, but clearly they are. For those outside our random little gene pool, this is a picnic, inside the house, and yes my kids are nerds, isn't it great?!


Last, but only because she's a princess is my dress up doll. Really half or at least a quarter of the fun of having a baby girl is dressing her up in ridiculously cute outfits. It's hard to see in this picture, but she is actually wearing little baby leggings, and they are super cute with her little pink cord mary janes.

A Birthday Celebration For The Whole Family

I can't tell you how many times we heard from the kids, "this is the BEST birthday celebration EVER!!!" And it really was quite fun. A month or so ago, I thought about celebrating 32 years of my life by sharing it with the family. And it was so worth it. I decided this would be our destination:We got there by traveling a little over 100 miles down the road to this rather important location in America's history. But we didn't come here to celebrate America's history (this time).

We came to America's beginnings to stay the night of my birthday here:

There's about a dozen of these in the country. And it was a beautiful setting. Everything inside is geared towards pure family fun.

This isn't the typical front desk of your average hotel. Everything about the Great Wolf Lodge was magical for the kids. And we didn't even experience everything it had to offer. We'll be going back again and staying a little longer next time.

They have themed suites throughout the lodge. We chose the Kids Den so they could enjoy a little privacy. Surprisingly, it only took them about 5 minutes to argue and agree on who got to sleep where. Top bunks are fun but bottom bunks come with windows. Everybody wins.

Every night at 8 o'clock the lobby comes to life. There's a little show at the great clock tower and it concludes with "snow" falling from the ceiling.

The kids were entranced. Some of the adults were, too!

After the show, everybody found a seat by the fireplace to enjoy a bedtime story. Wiley, the lodge's mascot, came out to play with the kids.

And Wiley stuck around after the story for a photo op. All of our kids were drawn to him and they became instant friends.

This is the rest of the fireplace (or at least most of it)! The place was HUGE! I can only imagine what the kids thought.

And then after the bedtime story for the kids, James brought a book to read just for me. He had waited all day long to read this Dr. Suess book to me. And I enjoyed every page!

The icing on the cake for everyone was the indoor water park. There was a larger-than-life bucket at the top of the coolest tree house ever that dropped 1,000 gallons of water every 5 minutes. Whether you were in the wave pool, or lazy river, or pool, or slides...when the bell went off people stopped what they were doing to watch. Some were brave enough to go under the water fall.

I guess it goes without saying, but it doesn't matter where you are in this water park...you're going to get wet. There were many times I was minding my own business when I got soaked without warning. There is water EVERYWHERE. But when it's 84 degrees year-round, the water feels great!

For a little while in the morning, we had the place to ourselves. There were a lot of other people, but there is so much to do that it felt like we were the only ones in the park. As it got later in the day, more and more people were enjoying the activities. All the kids especially liked the wave pool. You knew the waves were coming after you heard the wolves howling.

It took a little while, but this toddler area helped Peter and Luke warm up to all the water. There was lots to play with and they could walk anywhere safely. If someone was at the bottom of the orange slides, they were even brave enough to tackle those.

Eliza enjoyed most of the water park from the safety of her stroller. The rushing water throughout the park made the perfect white noise...so she slept most of the time.

This park isn't just for little kids. It's for big kids, too! And Mark graduated into the big kids category so Dad had a companion on the bigger rides. There were five slides that you went down using inner tubes - single or double. And three of those rides used circular or clover-shaped rafts that seated 4-6 people. The only "big" person slide you see in the picture below is the blue one. The others are on the 3rd or 4th levels of that same stairwell and immediately go outside, twisting and turning until you eventually make it back inside for a big splash at the end. Mark was very brave (and it was probably better that we had no idea what we were getting ourselves into). The first slide was fast and fun--a good exhilaration. Mark cackled the whole way down. So we went to get Anya so she could enjoy it, too. Then we went on a slide that used a huge raft that seated 4-6 people. There were grips to hold onto. I don't think I've ever seen Mark's eyes get that big. And I'll admit, there were a few times I thought the raft was going to flip over on us. But THEN...there was the "Howlin' Tornado" that I'll share with you in a few pictures.

There were slides that Anya and James could go down on their own. I think they each went down a dozen times before I could convince them to do something else for a little bit. It was fun to watch them enjoy themselves so much. Here's Anya bracing for the splash.

As soon as they got off the slide, they jumped out and started the ascent back up to the top.

Within a minute or so, I would see James reappear.

Had I seen this outside the lodge, I would NOT have taken Mark on the "Howlin' Tornado." Does this look like a "slide" to you?!?!? This is as close to bungee jumping that I ever want to get. My first clue should have been the reaction of the group in front of me. The lifeguard pushed their raft down the gigantic hole. Within about 15 seconds, I heard men shrieking like little girls being scared at camp. But Mark was with me...and he was eager to go down the slide. I kind of knew what to expect. I had read the sign at the top of the stairs and it mentioned you needed to be in good health...with a healthy heart. But that's what they say about every ride, right? And I read about the warning that there would be sudden drops. Again, no big deal, right? There were sudden drops in some of the other slides we had gone on. It's all good fun. So Mark and I got settled in to the clover-shaped raft with seats for 4. We sat across from each other. We began our descent down the yellow tube that was probably about 10 feet in diameter. As we went around a curve, I knew the "sudden drop" was coming because the tube essentially "ended" up ahead. But this drop wasn't a little dip in the slide. It was a literal vertical drop of I don't know how many feet. All I know is that neither Mark nor I could scream because we were both choking on water. And I wanted to throw up--I've never been a fan of the rides where you go up really high only to come down and then go back up. Those rides have always done a number on my stomach. Time stood still. This tube of about 10 feet in diameter just opened up to a 4 story tall building in diameter and I had no idea if the "slide" would ever end. I kind of want to ride it again next time we go just so I can look around a little more while I'm going down. But we only went once. And the whole way down I was literally praying that our lives wouldn't end. I was still shaking when we made it back to Karen. What a rush!

To calm our nerves, Mark begged me to let him try out the "Wipeout" ride. This is a ride you want to make sure your bathing suit is securely tied on. Before I could even get the camera ready, Mark already experienced a wipe out. So this is the best shot I could get. After he fell off the body board, the water shot him back up to the lifeguard.

So when Anya decided to follow after her big brother, I flipped the camera to video mode. And I'm glad I did (but don't tell Anya I put this video on the blog). Although she'll never try this ride again, at least she can tell you that it will go better if you hold onto the body board instead of putting your hands in the air.

So this is how I celebrated my 32nd birthday. I can't believe how quickly the two days of fun went by. We did so much...yet there was so much more we could have done. Next time we'll spend a few more days. Maybe this will become a traditional birthday celebration for Dad while we live here in Virginia.

Anya Elizabeth

January 9, 2010 was a big day for Anya. It began with her first piano recital. (And she did FANTASTIC!) There is a video of her first song at the end of this post. It was a recital unlike any I've attended before. There were kids and adults playing the piano, guitar, banjo, saxophone, clarinet, violin, drums, trumpet, and probably a few other instruments I'm forgetting. They played as soloists and in groups. It was quality entertainment. And it was a joy to see Anya perform so well.After the recital, we ran over to the church for her baptism. Yep...she turned 8. And what a wonderful service her baptism was. We had family there...which is really all that matters.

After her baptism, we returned home to celebrate her birthday.

Glen (Karen's brother) and Cheryl and their family were there with us. They've gotta be one of the best families EVER. They're solid, good people...and our kids LOVE hanging out with them (the "big" kids really like hanging out with them, too).

And this is how the day ended. Anya loves having one-on-one conversations with her baby sister, Eliza. It's really cute how much they adore each other.

Here is Anya playing in her first recital:

Happy Birthday, Anya! Thanks for sharing this special day with us! :)