Record

Well, weren't we lucky to be here for a record day. It hasn't been this cold in 11 years!

Do you know what cold is?

Well, I didn't. Turns out yesterday was warm. It was -38 F this morning when I got up. The house sounded like it was freezing. Popping and cracking all night long. I should have never seen that movie "Day after Tomorrow." And, for a new twist, something called ice fog. Apparently the little droplets of water turn to ice crystals. You can feel them when you breathe. People should not live in this kind of weather, but I'm sure they say that about 110 F. Your skin can freeze in minutes! We've never had ice before, but now everything is covered with ice. The garage is heated and the garage doors are insulated. There is ice all around the seams. It is crazy cold!

I was going on a field trip with Tyler's class, but they called to say it was cancelled and it was our choice whether or not to send them to school.......I was already half way there! So the kids are at school, and I had a babysitter so I went grocery shopping. It is cold!

I'm ready to come home now!

Cold!

The windows are more than 3/4 of the way covered in ice, on the inside. And yesterday we actually had to scrape the ice off of the inside of the car windows to see where we were going.

Its -23 F today with a windchill of -58 F. I haven't really been out in it, but I imagine its cold. The news says your skin can freeze in 5-10 min! We've had blowing snow for over 24 hrs with snow drifts as high as several feet. When you clean the road or sidewalk the snow just blows back in a few minutes. Lots of schools stopped bus service, but school is still open. Luckily our buses are still running or my kids would have had to stay home. But the snow on the road looks exactly like powdered sugar!

Galaxyland!!!

Mason was invited to a birthday party today. The sitters daughter was turning 2. The party was at the amusement park in the largest mall in North America. All of the boys had lots of fun.

Here Mason is with some of his friends, Madison, Ella, and Ethan.
He refused to go down the slide, but he kept climbing up to throw the balls down it.
And right before we left the big boys took Mason on the carousel. Mason loved the "rides." He yelled "ride, ride" most of the time we were there.
Of course, we had to brave near blizzard conditions to get there. That is the snow just blowing across the road. Its quite crazy looking.

Here are more pics of the amusement park http://photoshare.shaw.ca/view/10305959960-1201475273-46440/

Mason's new play room

Well, being home all the time its getting harder and harder to keep Mason entertained. He is now into climbing the kitchen counters, and emptying all of the drawers. So we decided to make a change......

Before .....The boys and I moved all of this upstairs to the bonus room ourselves!
During
And after.....
Here Mason is doing his work on his "pooter" (computer.)
We obviously need some more storage solutions, but I'm still looking for that.

Turns out it only looked like this for about 10 min....and that's about how long he played in it! But he does love going in there and screaming play! play!

Now all of his toys are in the same place instead of some being in the living room and some being upstairs where he can get into the computer and the boys toys and such. But, now we need to re-arrange the bonus room, but we'll save that for when Daddy comes back home.

Weather

Hey, just noticed the temp is correct on the weather button to the left. Maybe they finally fixed it! Its warm today, but next Monday the high is supposed to be about -5 F. Brrrrrr....

New Toys

I went shopping today while Mason played with his new friends at the sitters for a couple of hours today. I found him a used table with one chair, and a box of kitchen stuff on clearance at Wal-Mart. And since he played with fake food at Kennedy's house he finally knew what to do with it. He wasn't upset that you couldn't really eat it. I went to the Goodwill store looking for a work bench (since Frank won't let him have a kitchen.) They didn't have any, so I guess I'll have to keep looking.

And, he went potty in the potty for the first time! Maybe now he will understand why he sits up there.

What do you do when the high is 7 F?

Go to an Ice Festival, of course! Today we went to Ice on Whyte (the name of a major street in the area.) And of course it was cold and snowing out. They had an ice castle, an ice maze, and an ice slide. There was hot chocolate, an ice sculpting contest for professionals, and a movie screen made out of ice. They are going to show a movie this evening, but I can't imagine sitting out there to watch it. We didn't get to stay very long because Mason started throwing a fit and wouldn't keep his gloves on. We were worried about frost bite. Then we took him into the farmer's market next door to warm up his bright red hands. It was more like a small flea market, but quite warm.

The ice thrown in the castle.
The boys on the small ice slide, with the big one in the background. We had to leave before the boys got to do the big one.
Mason loved the ice slide. I think that's what caused the fit. We left the ice slide.

The big boys in the ice maze.
Mason and me in front of the ice bridge. And that is the best coat ever. I don't even feel the cold.

Can I touch it?

Well, we haven't been doing much lately. Just getting back into the swing of thing. Mason got a new potty seat from Santa. He loves sitting on it...but not doing anything else. He would say "I tousch it? I tousch it?" And I would respond by saying we can't touch it. Its dirty. And he would respond even more enthusiastically, "I tousch it? I tousch it!" Turns out tousch means flush! So now we "tousch it" every time we try it.

Tobboganning

Well, we tried out our new tobbogans today. AKA, sleds. Canadians don't say sledding though. It wasn't the best trip. Mason is still sick, and didn't much care for his sled.

Here he is in his new sled. He was crying so much he fogged up the windows!
Here he is sliding down the hill with his window open, which didn't really stop the crying.
Here are the big boys sliding down the hill. Turns out its not all that easy to steer these things. The boys had fun even though we had to leave early. Pulling Mason's sled was harder than I thought when the sidewalks are shovelled.
This is Mason and his new slide from Grandma and Grandpa C. This is much more his style. But we have to make him stop because when he runs around that much he starts coughing and can't stop.

Back in Canada

Well, we are back in Canada. Can hardly believe how cold it is. Doesn't seem like it was that cold when we left. The kids had a few presents to open when we got home. Mostly Mason since his gifts are too big to get on a plane.

Here's Tyler's Mission to Mars Lego set with 635 pieces.....that he got together in a few hours.
This is Tyler on his new bed linens. Money, Money, Money, Mooooney!
Here's Grant's new bedding. With a new storage ottoman that's great because it folds flat when not being used. With part of his lego set on it too.