February 2019

February was N...U...T...S...!
The kids had more days OUT of school than they did IN. 
They were not complaining...I'm sure they will as they have to go to school all the way to July now to make up those days, though!
Around here they called what happened in February the ...

They really don't see much snow around here and we did get a lot of it.  The mayor literally declared a state of emergency about it.  And the stores were out of control busy before it hit - and shelves were literally emptied out.  But I'm happy to report that we all survived. 

We ended up with a sweet bobsled type sledding run down the side of our driveway, some sweet snow sharks and a snow fort and giant snowballs. 

Then as we recovered from all the snow - another storm came through that brought freezing rain that coated all the thousands of trees around here with layers of heavy ice that really weighed the branches down and branches and trees literally started cracking and falling and making it pretty dangerous.  Not to mention what a mess the roads were with no decent snow removal system around here since they rarely need it and don't see the need to spend a lot of money on that.

Here's some pictures of the fun...

 That zigzag trail Jacie and I made had a funny story with it - our neighbor came to borrow a shovel later that morning and he had to follow Matt all along our zigzag path to the back of the house to get to the shovels - haha!

 

It was a pretty exciting adventure all month.  Here are some pictures of the other adventures we've had in February...

We love the new Come Follow Me program for church - we spend about an hour after church gathered around our table, munching on snacks and discussing the lessons out of the book - my kids are really impressing me with their teaching skills and how we can really feel the spirit and help our children learn about the gospel of Jesus Christ in a much more hands-on way.  Truly inspired.

This is my niece and nephew both serving missions to help spread the gospel in the nation of Fiji!

Here's some of Valentine's Day fun...

 Check out the long word down the middle...you might be surprised by which kid made this...

It was Cameron!

The boys were both SUPER excited to see a big raccoon walk right up to our back door and look inside at them - the footprints verified the authenticity of their claim!

Carly had a cool school project to make a working display of the digestive system.

And to end our month - we added a bit of fear and adventure into our lives - Alissa has officially started Driver's Ed!!  Look how scared she looks!  This was her very first time behind the wheel...in a parking lot.  I'm WAY too prone to gasping, and grabbing on to things and squeezing my eyes shut as I brace for impact to really be of much help to her as we're helping her learn how - so I try to get Matt to take her out on drives as much as possible!  Her driver's ed teacher said the kids are required to have at least 5 hours of drive time before they ever get in the car with her...hence the adventure.

And that was our crazy whirlwind of a February.  March has already shown us much more sunny skies - if not warmer weather yet - but on to more adventures we go!