Storms, Students and More Prizes

This morning a storm came through while we were waiting at the bus stop.  At first it was just torrential rain which is not pleasant but bearable, then a lightening bolt struck so close that it seemed like a camera flash going off in your face and the crash of thunder that followed was bone shaking, so Jacob and I and everyone else piled into Nicole's Ford Explorer.  It took me back a good few years to being a student or a field archaeologist as somehow we managed to squish 9 people in snow boots, 6 backpacks and the bone file in there on top of 2 kid's car seats, all sopping wet.  Ugh, it was a good job Rose was at home with a cough or I think I'd have been left standing outside trying not to look scared.

At school today Jacob was presented with this certificate for a poster he drew last November.  He got first place in the primary children's colour poster category for the Royal Canadian Legion Branch 498.  He is very pleased and smug, especially as the certificate came with an envelope with $20 in it!

Snow Day

Today was a snow day, that is a day when the school buses are cancelled due to inclement weather.  Actually, it's rained all day and the 3 or so inches of snow that we have has gone all wet and soggy, but the forecast for this morning was freezing rain so I think that was responsible for the lack of school transport.  The school was open (I think) and I'd normally drive Jacob in but a snow plough dumped about a foot of heavy, wet and manky snow across the drive entrance first thing this morning and I didn't have the energy to go out and remove it to get the car out so he got the day off.

This went down well for a while, he spent a couple of hours on the computer this morning then watched a DVD of Pirates of the Caribbean after lunch, then it all went downhill and he spent the rest of the day moaning about how bored he was.

Rose played school with the fairies this morning, here they are all lined up and doing as they are told, Rose is the teacher.

This afternoon she spent a long time preparing an elaborate tea party for her cousins who were allegedly  visiting.  Apparently they are called Sean and Jamie, live in Port Franks and drive a pink sparkly car????.  She talked about them so much that I think she forgot that they are fictitious and passed most of the afternoon watching for them and every so often insisting that I ring them to ask why they hadn't arrived yet.

The fictitious cousins, Jacob being home on the wrong day, the thick mist outside and the haze in my head due to lack of sleep last night gave the day a distinctly surreal edge that was slightly alarming.

Jacob Post: bonspiel

I went to a bonspiel on Saturday. My team beat both London teams. My team got 29 3/4 points.
In my team there was me(lead), Sam(second), William(vice), and Ashley(skip). I got a medal because my team came 4th out of 8th!

More Snow

Sorry but I do seem to be becoming quite snow obsessed.  Yesterday we had very cold temperatures again and about an inch of very fine powdery snow.  It was the loudest, squeakiest snow I've ever heard.  It was so loud and squeaky that I could hear it crunching under the tyres above the engine noise when I was 3 point turning the car.

On the way home from swimming on Wednesday I had my first experience of driving in the dark through falling snow.  It would have been ok but there was just enough snow on the ground to totally obstruct the road markings and I found myself having to drive in the tracks of whoever had gone in front of me and hope to God they stayed in the right lane.  I wasn't keen and was glad to get home, it must have been fairly scary as Jacob was quiet for the whole 2 km!

Today we have another few inches so Todd came to clear the driveway.  Here he is with his snow blowing machine, they are very common over here but I'd never seen one before so he allowed me to take a photograph.  It has this sort of giant drill bit on the front that scoops up the snow and then it blows it all out of the funnel.

There is also a man in the neighbourhood who has a big version that he pulls around hooked to the back of a tractor and I've seen footage of enormous ones in Montreal where they blow the snow into big dump trucks then drive it away - neat.

Cold and Dirty

Oh my goodness it's cold around here!  I believe an Alberta Clipper blew through this weekend, that is a cold front from the prairies associated with high winds and extreme cold, we're certainly getting that extreme cold now.  This morning when we tromped off to the bus stop it was -15 and the weather network estimated that with wind chill it felt like -27.  Brrr.  I still had to argue with Jacob for 10 minutes about wearing snow pants though and when he got off the bus this afternoon he was carrying them.  Oh well.

At the moment the bottom half of the car is filthy.  Jacob is showing it off in the garage (too cold to photograph it outside) in Debbie McGee/Carol Vordeman style.  I noticed last year how dirty cars get here in the winter, I'm not sure if it is just the nature of the sandy soil in this particular region blowing about and making the roads dirty, or all the grit and salt that they have to use to keep the highways open.  Our car is actually not bad compared to many, I've noticed when driving about that it isn't unusual to be behind a car that is so filthy you can't read the number plate.

The silver lining is that you can no longer see how horrible the wheels look with the rubbish black nuts and bolts that they put on snow tires with, I shall be glad when our lovely posh alloys are back.

Rose refused to have her photo taken with a dirty car so here she is with her scooter and the Rav which we obviously don't drive enough so its quite clean.

Weighing the Bone File

Yesterday, as promised, I weighed the Bone File, it wieghs 4.4lb or just over 2 kg and it travels to school on the bus with Jacob everyday.  Here is a picture of them on Friday morning.

I'm not entirely sure what it is or what it is for.  It has developed from a handful of crumpled bits of paper, to a cardboard divider file with lots of pieces of paper taped into it and string up the sides in a green bag.  Its latest incarnation is this rather more robust and waterproof file that Santa brought.  I asked Jacob for a short synopsis or list in order to enlighten you as to the contents and here it is:

• Bone Collecting (hereafter known as BC) story, inc. artwork
• BC card game (Clue)
• BC card game (bonemon)
• BC Mansion plans
• BC alphaboxes
• BC trials eg. BC time trial
• Group, pocket, bus, home points
• bus, home, points, lives
• Bone rarerness
• BC anual colours
• BCVGS (video games system) website
• BC belts
• BC bills
• BC comics
• Cop information
• BC drawing and diagrams
• Explosion party
• Enemy information
• Power-ups
• Maps
• Minus Land
• Membership pyramids
• Symbols
• Store
• Threats
• Video game planning
• Website planning
• White screen information

It is all linked up to a game they play at recess where everyone is a dog or cat, they live in a 'doggie den' and collect sticks or 'bones'.  Its great that he has lots of people to play this game with and it keeps him busy out of school time doing paperwork, but the best thing is the load bearing exercise he is getting lugging the file about everywhere. 

Beach Weather and Snowflakes

Yesterday the sun was shining,the sky was blue and the temperature was hovering around freezing so after lunch Rose and I decided to get some fresh air.  Rose didn't fancy a walk or the play area so we decided on playing in the garden.  First we played basket ball and soccer (as I have to call it over here) then Rose played the xylophone while I did some step aerobics on the big concrete slabs (don't ask).  When that got boring Rose announced that it was soooo lovely outside we should play beaches, so she got out all the sand toys and 'ironed' the patio with a plastic sand sculpting tool for about half an hour while both our noses went blue with cold.  Whatever floats your boat I guess.  Here she is with all her paraphernalia.

Since the onset of winter weather I have begun to get an insight into why people from cold countries have many words for snow.  Today tiny snowflakes have been drifting effortlessly and almost casually from clouds that look far too high and thin and although it has been snowing for 6 hours now there is very little on the ground.

While I was shivering at the bus stop this morning I noticed that the tiny flakes landing on my coat and mittens were perfect intricate, 6 pointed shapes like pictures in books or paper cut outs.  I fear that the other people at the bus stop may have thought someone slipped something interesting in my breakfast as I stood there gazing at my arms and hands in wonder occasionally exclaiming 'Ooh, look at that one!' Hopefully they will put it down to my being English.  I tried to take a picture, if you look really carefully you can spot little clusters of stars especially on the right hand side.

I know it just looks like a paving slab, zoom in and look  really, really close

Jacob has not been included in this post, this is because he wants me to write about the weight of the 'bone file' and he has taken it to school un-weighed so for the purposes of inclusion I may be back later.

Resilient Weeds and Rascally Rodents

Today was -5 and officially felt like -8, it was bitterly cold at the bus stop this morning and felt more like about -20 to me.  This is our first cold day since last Thursday, at the weekend it got up to 11 degrees and all but the hardest packed drifts of snow are now gone.  It has revealed some interesting natural phenomena.

Look at this, 3 days above freezing and weeds have started germinating in the plant pot of dead things currently gracing the front steps.  You can't fault them for trying.

These strange markings on the lawn were a bit of a mystery.

It looks like aliens visited and left us a sign but I think Jacob was probably right when he speculated that they have been made by some sort of rodent.  As soon as he said it a picture of foxes pouncing on voles or similar that live in burrows between the snow and the earth in Yellowstone flashed  into my head.  I'm fairly sure Jacob's explanation is correct but next time it snows I shall keep an eye open for either jumping foxes or spaceships just so I know for sure.

Jacob Post: Kids Club

Yesterday, I went to the kids club. I played chess, table soccer, and Wii. The Wii games that I played were Mario Cart and Super Smash Bros. It was fun. Then, we went to Grandpa's house. I started making the bone collecting world. Then I did baseball on the Wii. Today, I went curling. My best throw was into the inner red ring. Just before now, I found over 2000 tion-ending words. Find them at www.morewords.com.

Warm Feet

My snow boots arrived today and although they are not glamorous and do resemble Dad's work boots  I like them, good job as I will no doubt be wearing them for a good few winters.

Note the different interpretations of winter wear here

They came just in the nick of time as today it is 11 degrees and raining (feels kind of familiar somehow) so the heavy duty liners that will keep me warm in temperatures as low as -40 have been very useful.  Since you are getting the rare treat of a picture of me here is another that Rose took.

We weren't on the way back from the pub, honest.

Fashion Maths

Today Rose demonstrates how to take 2 key pieces: leggings and a leotard, from classical ballet

To modern dance

Or possibly ageing rock star/WWF wrestler

Look at those powerful thighs!

And Jacob does a maths test

And some more filing.

Icicles

There are some really long and picturesque icicles around here at the moment.  There is a pretty good one at the corner of our garage roof, I have put the children in for scale so you can see that today it is about half as long as Rose.

Not only does this particular icicle look very attractive and wintery but it also serves as a good weather and wardrobe indicator.  It is conveniently located just in front of the Master en-suite window so when I stagger out of bed and into the bathroom in the morning I can make an instant decision on whether or not to wear my long underwear according to the size and drippiness of the icicle.

Photos from yesterday

So here are the photos I was going to post yesterday.  First Rose demonstrating the 'mini luge', I went on it today and it goes really fast, no photos of that I'm afraid.

And here is Jacob with McDuff who I cobbled together with scraps to make up for the production of Oddsock and keep sibling rivalry at bay.

Guess what, we went sledging again this morning, I took this picture of the view from the top of the slope, I suppose there are worse places to stand about in the cold.

This evening we had homemade pizza.  I gave Rose had a little piece of dough to 'help' and she insisted on making a special pizza for Daddy.  She spent hours mangling the dough then very carefully decorated it with 2 minute pieces of onion, 3 pieces of olive and a slice of 'musheroom'.  This is the result, she managed to get the crust so thin that Tom said it was better than mine, humph.

Looks like a ghost or a cbeebies blob to me

Chilly Feet

Yesterday I spent another 2 hours standing about in freezing temperatures watching the children sledging.  My feet got quite cold with no snow boots as trainers really don't cut the mustard when the weather network says it feels like -11.  My feet were still tingling slightly when I went to bed last night so this morning I decreed a sledge free day and cleaned the bathrooms instead, the children were not impressed.

This evening I have ordered a couple of pairs of boots with thermal linings that withstand temperatures down to -40 so if any of them fit they should do the trick.  They look like Dad's rigger boots and will not look glamorous or dainty in a whopping size 10 but as the rest of me doesn't either I guess that's probably for the best.

I was going to put photos in today but blogger is not giving me the right upload button so I'm afraid you'll have to do without until tomorrow.  Sorry

Wildlife News Flash

This morning I was dragged out to the club house to go sledging by the kids, it was -4 again but there was no wind and it wasn't snowing so I allowed myself to be coerced.  It's not so bad really, the worst part is actually walking there and all the shouting of 'stay at the edge of the road' and 'don't fall in the drifts' that seems to have to be done.  While the children are actually sledging all I have to do is stand around at the top of the hill and talk to other parents which is quite civilized.

Anyway, while they were all shouting and milling about this morning (children, not parents) a coyote ran past us up the centre of the frozen Old Ausauble Channel, bold as brass in broad daylight.  It gave me a bit of a tingle being that close to a proper wild creature but I'm glad it had the good taste to ignore the children.

Tom asked me if I got a photo but not only is my camera cheap but today it was also on the kitchen counter.

Snowy New Year

Happy New Year!

Today it has snowed off and on all day, some of it has been the snow equivalent of drizzle, really fine but surprisingly heavy and some has been those really fat, slow flakes that make everything look like a christmas card.  This is the view from the front door.

There's a driveway out there somewhere.

And this is the back yard.

Tom commented that there are so many windows in the lounge it is like sitting in an inverted snow globe, he is right and so as it was -3 I felt that meant I didn't need to actually go outside today at all.  The children went out in the back yard for a while but Rose got tired of wading through knee deep drifts and Jacob and his sledge kept sinking and not getting anywhere.

I woke up this morning with all sorts of ambitious ideas about starting the year with purity, self control and a lot of fruit and salad but by lunchtime I'd accidentally managed to eat a large pile of cheesy corn chips, a couple of chocolates and a piece of Christmas cake.  January 1st seems like such a bad time for the New Year, fresh starts and resolutions etc, it would be much more sensible to have it in the middle of January like the Chinese New Year when all the Christmas food is finished and you've had time to psych yourself up a bit.