Polar Vortex

It has been so so cold around here! No school for the kids yesterday and today. They're doing pretty well, but getting some cabin fever too. A friend of mine and I were talking last night and it's just a shame that our kids can't even go out and play on their snow days. Usually when they get a snow day, we don't see them all day because they're out building igloos, snowmen and sledding up a storm. We're already up to 5 snow days..really hoping for no more. I don't want them going to school until the end of June! Here's a pic of my crazies...



Chris left today for Edmonton for the week and he texted me a picture of his car on his way to the Moline airport. Check out the temp....



Saturday we went up to Decorah for my niece's 4th birthday and my nephew's baptism. It was fun to see everyone and to get to celebrate those two events! We went swimming for Grace's party and then had pizza and cupcakes afterwards. I felt like I took a bunch of pictures this weekend, but then realized it was with my sister in law's camera! So I don't have many pictures to share. Of course we are always missing Tara and Tony when we're all together so I decided to FaceTime Tara while we were about to sing Happy Birthday to Grace. She had just FaceTimed me earlier in the evening so I just went to my recent calls and clicked it. Turns out...they have their ipad and Tony's phone hooked up to the same account. So when I called and Tara wasn't home, it rang Tony's phone and he answered! Maybe that doesn't seem strange to you, but he was on mainland Japan leading a 94 truck convoy and he answered my facetime call! Unfortunately, the connection wasn't that great and we got cut off soon after he answered, but we got quite a few laughs from that one. I talked to Tara later and she said Tony thought it was hilarious:)



The trip home from Decorah wasn't great, but it wasn't the worst ever. There was quite a bit of snow blowing and roads that were becoming partially covered with drifts. We took it nice and slow. We drove on all the main roads too which made for a longer trip, but a much safer one too. We think we made it home with about 20 minutes to spare before the big winds came up and there were white out conditions. I couldn't see our neighobr's house at one point. We just cozied up and watched/listened to a crazy blizzard all night long.



And one more thing....we have some good news straight out of Japan! Tara and Tony are expecting a baby this summer! We're pretty excited to find out soon whether we are going to be blessed with a new girl or boy cousin! You can pretty much guess what my kids think....Max is sure it's a boy and Mya is sure it's a girl. go figure. They told the kids awhile back and I managed to get a screen shot of Max's face over FaceTime. I wanted to share because it just brings a smile to my face whenever I come across it:)