Happy New Year!

Christmas is over. Time to reflect on the last year and make plans for the new year. After our Ice storm, power outage and missing four days of school we finally went back to school on Thursday. Friday afternoon we were dismissed two hours early due to another "wicked" bad snow storm. It continued to snow all day Saturday only to stop for the night. Sunday it started back up. Monday morning we had a two hour delayed start to school. Managed to make it through the day on Tuesday. Now we are home for Christmas break. Crazy! Here are some pics I took on Saturday when it snowed all day.

I always look out at the bird house to see how much snow we are getting. The snow was higher the next day.

On Christmas eve we went ice skating with our friends, the Lanes. Below is a picture of the girls with Erica.

On Tuesday evening we went to our church for an awesome Christmas service. The music was awesome. We met up with our friends, the Drakes, for coffee and tea beforehand. It was great to catch up with them. Christmas Eve we went to this little Congregational church here in town for their candlelight service. We started going there when we first moved to NH and keep going every year. It is a small, old, white church in the center of town. Very quaint and New Englandish.

Before the girls headed to bed Todd, as he does every year, read the girls The Night Before Christmas and The Grinch.

The girls were up by 7:30 Christmas morning. I have to say that is the earliest they have ever been up on Christmas. We were downstairs opening up presents by 8am. They came down and were very excited to see Santa came during the night.

Below the girls are opening their new computer. Their very own to play webkinz and school work, etc.
We had a short visit from Jim and Luke. It was fun to see Luke open his present from us. And we were able to wish Uncle Jamie a Happy Birthday in person this year!!

The rest of the day we hung out playing games, eating and stayed in our pj's until we went for a walk right before dinner. It was a good day.

Since then we have been doing some work around the house. Cleaning, purging, organizing. We hope to start pulling down MORE wallpaper today!!

The weather was warm yesterday and the snow is melting!! The girls and I took a short bike ride yesterday and a long walk as it was about 60 degrees out. Today it is colder but the sun is shining brightly!! The girls are bummed the snow is melting. Eleven more weeks until Spring....I am counting down.

I will leave you with a couple pics of the cats on Christmas morning! Happy New Year!!!

Roscoe was in the thick of things. But Bailey just wanted out on the porch. He wanted to get the heck out of there.
Please let me out!!!

Day Four....No School.

With school being out we have had some extra time to bake cookies and make Christmas cards. Yesterday we baked three different kinds of cookies. The girls were great. They really helped and we finished baking them all. Still need to ice the cutouts. Emily requested that we make green and red cut out cookies. So we colored some of the dough and did just that. I was a bit leery but they turned out really nice. Here they are cutting out the sugar cookies.
Here they are making Snickerdoodles. The girls chose what cookies they wanted to make. They also chose to make chocolate crinkles. They all turned out very tasty.

After my last post, the girls pointed out that I did not include a picture of our cat, Roscoe. I say "our" cat but he is really all Emily's. Roscoe and Emily have a very unique relationship. He acts so different with her than with any of us. Very cute. Here are a couple pictures of Roscoe.

The picture below is a typical position of Roscoe. Emily claims Roscoe talks to her. I have to say he really sounds like he says "out" when he wants to hang out on our screened in porch. He doesn't seem to get along with the other cats. I think he thinks he is human.

As some of you know, we got a new cat. Not something we planned on. We went to the animal shelter to get our Christmas tree as we do every year. And every year we go in and visit all the animals. Well, this cat approached me and all I could think of was Bugsy. He was so friendly to me and we all fell in love with him. His name is Benson, we call him Butler Boy sometimes, and he is already 10 years old. He doesn't act that old and is a funny cat. One of the things I really miss about Bugsy being gone is that he always came to sit on my lap when I was on the computer. The other day I was sitting here and Benson jumped up on the chair. I was so happy and thought, here we go....he has some Bugsy in him after all. But instead of sitting on my lap he just took over the desk and computer. Here are a couple pictures of that. I will get him on my lap sooner or later.

We are still out of school due to the ice storm. Some districts here have canceled school until after New Years. We still have downed power lines around town and people are still without power. To make things more challenging a snow storm has moved in and we are expected to get up to 5 inches of the white stuff. Right now it is nice to look out my window from my warm house at the beautiful sight of white everywhere. So we are making the best of it and enjoying our time at home.

Ice Storm December 2008

Today is day four with no power here at 21 Cabot Rd. We had a "wicked" bad ice storm Thursday night into Friday morning. All night long we heard cracking and crashing. Kind of scary. We lost power sometime during the night into Friday morning. Luckily, my wonderful husband was prepared. By 5:30am or so we had power due to the generator Todd bought a few years ago. We were able to hear on the radio that schools were closed. Of course at the time, I thought there must be something better we could spend our money on. I am so glad he bought it because it has saved us our house, food, money, etc. Not to mention sanity!! We have limited power but we have all that we need. The wood stove has been working non stop and the hot room is in full swing!! We can use the dishwasher, washing machine, dryer and computer as long as we do it one at a time. All outlets do not work but we have enough. The picture above is the little tree in our front yard. Most of the pictures I took outside came out a bit blurry. That is what happens, I guess, when you take them through the window. Oh well. Next time I will actually go outside.

The pine trees were drooping so low. This was right outside our dinning room window.

Our pool. Not too bad. There was a layer of ice on top so I don't think anything got through the cover. The fence looks intact as well.

The basketball hoop was not as lucky. Snapped right in half. Our neighbor next door had a huge limb come down on the back of his car breaking the windshield and smashing the rear end of his car.

The sun came out as it always does here after a storm. It was beautiful!! The ice was falling off the trees and glistening. Todd and Noel (Todd's dad, they just happened to be visiting us at the time) went out and cleaned up all the fallen branches. They were soaked when they came in.
We spent the rest of the day watching videos and enjoying each other's company. Cable and Internet were out until yesterday. Noel and Debbie were here and we had a great time with them. The Eelmans up the street joined us for awhile b/c their house was cold until Todd helped them get a generator set up at their house.

Our newest addition to the family, Benson, found comfort on Grandpa Buck!!
Here is Bailey relaxing in his favorite spot.

That is all for now. We are good and hoping that the power comes back on and we can get back to school. We have missed two days that we will have to pay back at the end of the year and it isn't even Christmas yet. Hopefully all our snow storms this year will be on the weekends so we don't miss a lot of days of school. They are predicting a bad Winter this year and we are just starting. Hope everyone is enjoying the Christmas season!!