More details about our snow holiday ~
Jack's favorite part was eating the snow, which he did every chance he got. The picture of him kneeling by the green turtle sandbox (see the first post about snow) was taken between bites of snow off the edge of the sandbox. Beth enjoyed the snow, especially throwing snowballs at me while I took pictures of everyone else and cleaning the snow off the swings. Kylie also enjoyed pelting me with snowballs while I had the camera in one hand and had the other hand over the top so the lens wouldn't get wet (the snow was falling pretty heavily). Megan preferred to aim at Rob and actually managed to hit him with several snowballs. Simon ecstatically joined the snowball fight, but had to be put inside when he kept trying to pull everyone's gloves off and kept pushing Jack down in his enthusiasm. Kylie and Megan were most involved in the creation of Mick the snowman, who Beth insisted should be named Frosty. A compromise was finally reached and Frosty Mick the Snowman was christened.
Rob and I headed inside following Mick's creation, but all four kids stayed outside and thoroughly enjoyed frolicking (used that word just for you Rob!) in what eventually totaled over 13 inches of snow. We not only broke, but smashed the record for the snowiest day in recorded North Texas history. The previous record was 7.5 inches. I believe we have also broken the record for the snowiest winter ever in this area as well as they were talking about getting close to breaking it before this storm. We had already hit 3 inches and it was only February!
Megan and Kylie stayed outside the longest. They built a seat on the back of Mick, resulting in him starting to lean forward at a somewhat precarious angle. Once they came inside, we let Simon back out again. Simon promptly discovered sticks (!!!) sticking out of the snowman and had a ball jumping the four feet to perform an enthusiastic amputation of both arms. He then noticed the carrot nose and attempted to amputate that as well, but Mick's height foiled him. Simon's jumping removed even more of Mick's frontal support and he now looked as though he had a severe case of vertigo. Rob snuck out and tried to fix Mick before the girls saw, resulting in the following . . .
Oh well, RIP Mick! :)
We took it easy that afternoon. I worked on homework, the girls watched tv and Rob and Jack napped.
Megan got tired of watching tv and headed back out. Discovering Mick's demise, she decided we needed another snowman. Simon helped in the creation of this snowman, resulting in the necessity of a second carrot nose (or third if you count Mick's) when he helpfully ran off with the first one.
Kylie joined Megan for a bit, then they both came inside for hot cocoa topped with whipped cream (yes, we went a bit heavy on the whipped cream that day - we had a large container of it that Kylie had been assigned to bring to school for a Valentine's party, which was canceled due to the weather).
We got a phone call from Keith and Dana (Christy's boyfriend's sister and her husband) who live down the street, inviting us over to go sledding. They have a wonderful sledding hill in their yard and live close enough to us for it to be possible to go over there. None of the kids had ever been sledding before (that I remember - Megan may have when she was one or two) and were thrilled at the prospect!
We made cookies to share, then loaded everyone into the minivan. It usually takes maybe 2 minutes to get to their house, but since there are no snowplows and there was already a good 9 inches of snow on the ground, it took a bit longer. We ended up parking on a nearby street and hiking to their house so we wouldn't get stuck trying to get back up the hill on the way home. Christy left work early to join us, but party-pooper Ron didn't want to drive 30 miles to go sledding. I don't know what he was thinking :)
One problem we had was that we didn't have any sleds. They don't sell them down here. Fortunately Keith and Dana have a pool and therefore pool toys. Christy also stopped and bought a huge inflatable pool raft shaped like a catcher's mitt. By the time we had gotten there, Keith had already made part of the catcher's mitt explode by running into a tree, but that made it much easier to drag it up the hill - we just grabbed the dangling pieces :)
We all had a blast! First I took pictures, then Rob and I switched places. Our camera stopped working when Rob tried to use it, so I don't have any pictures of me, but I think Christy or Dana took some :)
The pink raft didn't work quite as well - it had netting in the middle so whoever was soaking in the pool could feel the water. The netting tended to get stuck in the snow. Kylie and Jack got stuck halfway down the hill, so Megan and Rob graciously sledded into them to get them moving again ~
After sledding, Keith and Dana invited us in for dinner - a combination of beans and sausage that Keith had been cooking and a pot roast that Christy made since the plan (before it decided to keep snowing) had been for Ron, Dana and Keith to eat at her house. We ate my oatmeal cookies as an appetizer :)
Christy spent the night at our house and the following day, Rob and I woke up at 5:30am to get Beth to the surgical center. It's about a 20 minute drive, so we left an hour before we had to be there. We slid a few time and passed quite a few cars that had wrecked, but managed to make it there safely. It made me glad Rob spent so much time as a teenager fooling around in his car and making it spin out in parking lots!
Beth's surgery went well. The doctor ended up removing a mole behind her ear too. It would have probably had to be removed at some point and having had a few removed from me as an adult, I would have preferred to have had them removed as a child, under general anesthesia. The reason he removed the mole was that it was covering the area he usually removed the piece of fat from (Beth had a hole in her ear drum and so they fixed it by putting a small piece of fat through the hole to fill it). He came out and asked us if we wanted him to just remove the fat from a different area, but as long as she was going through it anyway, we told him to just go ahead and remove it.
I was really impressed by everyone there! They gave Beth a nasal gel to begin the process of knocking her out, then waited until she was almost out of it. The doctor himself came out and carried her back so she wouldn't be scared as she knew him. He held her while they used a mask to give her enough gas to put her under, then after she was out they put her IV in. They called us back when she started to wake up and she was cuddled on a nurse's lap instead of lying by herself in a bed. It was the best I could have imagined the experience to be :)
Beth's recovery was pretty quick. She slept all the way home, then seemed fine the rest of the day. She did nap for a while and that night complained of some pain. I gave her the hydrocodine she had been prescribed. She got really giggly and very silly. She spent much of the evening laying on my lap, saying "mommy, Mommmy, MOMMY!" and I would say "What?", to which she would say "I love you!" and give me a big kiss :) She spent that night sleeping in our room (I had Rob sleep in another room so one of us would get some sleep - he let me sleep the next day in return) and really hasn't had much of a problem since then :)
One final picture - Kiki did our dishes while she was watching the other three kids (Meg and Kylie had a snow day and were home) and used rubber gloves. The kids thought the gloves were fantastic and confiscated them. Kylie and Jack as "firefighters" ~
No comments:
Post a Comment