Ice And Snow And A Cozy Home

Seems like we've had our share of snow and ice and cold weather this winter! But, we live in Wisconsin so I guess we can expect that... Jere's thriving in it, and thinking winter just isn't long enough. Hmmm. Anyway, we decided to take advantage of a not quite so cold evening and take the children out for a winter sport: ice skating! Mama lasted about ten minutes (I wasn't skating, though), Leanna lasted 11, and Daddy and the boys went at it for almost an hour. At that point Eliott was ready to go in and Jaron was begging to play hockey just a little longer! :-)

 

 

 With much thankfulness, I realized recently that my strength and energy has come back! In fact, on occasion I feel MORE energetic than I have for a LONG time. Maybe because I'm also at the lowest weight I've been for a LONG time? Hooray! Anyway, I took advantage of a couple of energetic days and finally got some sewing done. How do you like the new curtains in our school room?? I think they make it feel SO much cozier and home-like! I can hardly wait to get enough done on the rest of the house to get some more curtains up. But it all takes time...

 

 

 

And, just a quick peek at the newly organized laundry room, waiting expectantly for some shelves in our next project!

 

Camping!

Camping? In February? Well, yesterday I noticed the children were showing signs of cabin fever. It was also the only "normal" evening we were going to have all week. And then Jere called at almost supper time and said he had run to town for something to get his tractor working again. This cold is HARD on machines! So I decided it was time to "play summer" and go camping! :-)

 

Static!!

 

Our artificial campfire. 

S'mores with leftover chocolate frosting instead of chocolate bars. The children and Jere thought it was good! (I was a good girl and didn't indulge--though it was tempting!)

 

I think we all had a ton of fun. The boys even got to sleep in the tent last night, which thrilled them immensely. We ate supper in the living room and read stories and Jere joined them in the tent for awhile. I was too sore and weary to even consider it, as I've been exercising as well as running up and down stairs pretty constantly it feels, and my muscles aren't enjoying being pushed!

Now for a story I shared on FaceBook that everyone seemed to think was pretty funny... Yesterday morning when I had just showered I glanced out the living room window to see that Kodi had gotten in with "The Girls", who are both in heat. As we hope to do a little traveling in the spring we REALLY don't want puppies coming!

The Girls. See how high the snowdrift is?

There's a snowdrift that has shortened their fences quite a bit, though Jere had dug some of it out of Kodi's pen, or he could have walked right over it. For awhile we had Kodi tied so he couldn't go anywhere, but then he broke the chain. So Jere tried digging out some more snow, and it worked for a little bit. Hence, the discovery yesterday morning he was in with The Girls. It was about 2 degrees outside, and I had a distinct flashback of chasing a runaway dog in northern MN in my stocking feet at -10 years ago as I raced down the stairs and grabbed my boots. I didn't bother with a jacket, and because of that made it just in time. I couldn't find the big dog crate we use for transporting our dogs, so I locked Kodi inside the dog barn as a temporary measure. By the time I got back inside my wet hair was frozen in a sheet. Brrrr. To continue the story, last night Jere had to run work on the tractor a bit after the children were in bed, so I was ready for bed and reading some emails in our room when I heard a peculiar and familiar yelp. Unbelieving, I grabbed a flashlight and shone out at the dog pens. Sure enough, despite Jere digging out yet MORE snow from the pen, Kodi was in with The Girls again! I sprinted to the bedroom door, ran back a few steps to grab a robe, then raced down two flights of stairs, slipped into my boots again, and ran out to catch that naughty dog again. As soon as he saw me coming he got desperate, but he was locked back inside the dog barn. I couldn't get The Girls back into their pen without freezing (it was just below 0 this time!) so I left them for Jere to contain when he got back and hurried back into the warm house. Sigh. These dogs. I guess only time will tell, but I think we're still safe. As long as Kodi stays locked up inside the barn!

A white winter

I can't believe it's February already. And then in the next breath I want to say, I can hardly wait for this winter to be over! We have had a very cold, very snowy, and very blustery winter so far. I'll have to get out sometime and get some good snow pictures, but for now suffice to say we've carried the children from the end of our driveway several times, gotten vehicles stuck several times, had to deal with vehicles/tractor that won't start or won't keep running, and the furnace is a wood eating monster! There, that about sums up the weather this winter! And Jere still says he wants to move north... HELP!!!! :-)

Things around here have been nothing short of utterly hectic the last couple of weeks. We survived one weekend of EMT refresher, and we have one more coming up. Between that and Jere just getting back from Haiti and the weather and lots of church/social activities, we feel like our daily routine kind of went out the window. I'm hoping to get it back a little bit this week, for the children's sake. They're not dealing with it all the best sometimes, and it's time to step back and just take a breather right now. And for their mommy's sake, too! I have actually been doing very well. It seems my strength is coming back to a greater degree, and I'm beginning to feel more normal. I've been able to keep up with things better, so that feels really good. Well, if I could get some sleep. Our dogs have taken to howling at the moon the last couple of nights and I haven't been sleeping real well. But it's exciting to be able to start exercising again, not to mention running up and down stairs an awful lot and not feeling completely worn out after only two or three rounds.

Jere's been staying busy, obviously. He has his "new" skid steer almost back together and working, just has one more seal to change. He's actually working on a small job today, and I think he'll be there the rest of this week. And I believe he'll be starting to spend some time in the woods cutting trees before just too long. He's feeling a little like this winter isn't long enough!

I'm going to add a few pictures of his trip to Haiti... Enjoy!

Jere and Anita

View from the mountains down to the ocean.

Members of the SALT team looking over the ag program nursery where they are growing coffee seedlings and are experimenting with other plants.

Clint Bower, Darv Seibel, on left, as the SALT representatives in Haiti. Clinton Wolf, the other "blah" (white man) is the one who went with Jere and is the head of the SALT board Stateside.

Ocean view.

They "toured" a boat-building business they discovered along the beach. Sounded fascinating!