Happy Birthday Olivia!!

My handsome son before his first Varsity Basketball game of the season. What a day Wednesday. Racing in a snowstorm to pick up kids from school and get to the gym to work the gate for the two JV games. Then I watched my boy play before racing home to watch Survivor. (Racing isn't a good description as it was snowing and blowing. No one could see and there were a lot of accidents. Frantic would be a better word).

 

I took my camera to the fix-it guy, but he needed more than one day. He messed with my settings and put it down to one focus point. Almost every one of the 250 photos I took of the game were blurry. I am not pleased. The game wasn't all that great either. New coach. Elijah's new. The little bit of playing time he got he was awesome. Lots of hustle, no turnovers unlike some guys who played a lot... and turned the ball over again and again. I was disappointed he didn't play more and I hope this isn't how the season is going to go. It's frustrating to watch players get court time just because they are a Senior or just because they played last year. It should be the best in the game and that just was not the case.

School was cancelled today. A snow day. From what I can gather on facebook the last snow day was around 1968. We got 9.5-13 inches in 24-hours depending on your part of the town. My house easily got 13 if not more. What else was today? Olivia's 8th birthday! She got a present earlier from Grandma Claudia and Papa that she saved for this morning.

 She loved it!

The snow was far more than my 4-wheeler could handle so the plan was to clean off some vehicles and wait for Homer to use the loader tonight.

 This photos were from this morning when I tried to make a blog post and nothing would cooperate.

 Elijah thought he was going to drive to school this morning. Not a chance.

Look how deep the snow is on my table. You can barely see the chairs.

 

Lucas struggling through waist deep snow.

Emily walking back to the house with a shovel. She went to rescue someone who was stuck at the end of our driveway.

 That's the guy at the corner. He was in a little car, turned on our road and came to a stop. It hadn't been plowed yet.

Homer cleaned the snow off the greenhouse Tuesday night and it filled right back up.

He looks so tiny out in the yard.

 

See Elijah on the motor home? He cleaned off some vehicles with Emily.

Nick shovelled off the entire deck... it's 60 X 8 and was 1.5 feet deep (or more as it hadn't been done all winter). We never ever go on the deck summer or winter except to shovel it. I think it needs a hot tub. :) 

The dogs were having great fun in the snow. Mandy would get completely lost.

Hi-ya..karate chop!

 

Emily came out and it was woohoo! as they ran for her.

Olivia took a picture of my frosted hair when I came in from shovelling a big area for Daisy to move about it. My body is seriously tired after 3.5 hours of shovelling. As I type this my hands are swelling and ache.... the snow storm is moving out and cold temperatures are moving in. My knee hurts, too. Who needs a weatherman?  Finally snow for the riders and it's supposed to be -40* below on Saturday. Figures.

 

Kids get a birthday dinner and they choose the restaurant. Of course, Olivia picked Food Factory. Look at Nick and Elijah. They frown on purpose just to bug me. And my husband with his silly face. This family!!



 

 

How many Lucas's do you see? Yes, yes there are three. They were having fun playing with the panorama setting on my iPhone.

They love the treasure box. My kids feel so at home here. We get our own crayons and color sheets, and we help ourselves to the treasure box. The servers treat us really good because as a former server I tip well. It is always a good night out when we go there (and we got to watch a little football and basketball).

The servers (and quite a few people in the restaurant... see the guy behind her?) sang Happy Birthday. She was so embarrassed and got red in the face. It was so cute.

 The gal on the left was our server tonight and she was excellent. We usually have the guy on the right. The one in the middle is a busser.

And that concludes my very long post. So much to do. I can't believe my Christmas cards are still stacked on the table. Shame on me. Maybe tomorrow after I deliver cupcakes to Olivia's class.... Emily and I made some tonight and I'll frost them in the morning. Are you ready for Christmas? There are only the presents under the tree from Emily and I am out of money. We pull it off somehow, but it just doesn't see very merry this year. Mounting medical bills and $550 electric bills will do that to a person. Oh, and Elijah needs to go to the doctor a.g.a.i.n. tomorrow. His shoulder is all messed up and he can't lift his arm. To me it looks like his shoulder is out of socket. Ug!