January

As is pretty typical for January, we didn't take a ton of pictures to start the year. Ed miraculously had New Years off - he was scheduled for a trip, but Delta ended up "buying" the trip off him so they could use it to train a new pilot. He got paid to hang out at home - yay!

The month started nicely with a yummy New Years dinner (after church at our new time - 11:00 - yay!).

And...January went downhill from there. Here's kind of how it went:

Kassie had been sick almost all of Christmas break with an awful cough, sore throat, fever, and zero energy. By the time January 3rd rolled around we thought she was doing a lot better so we sent her off to school. We were wrong - she was doing better, but probably not well enough that we should have sent her to school. Oops.

That night this happened: 

We had yet to get unburied after December's snowfall. This meant on Wednesday the 4th we had a snow day.  We watched "Snow Day" on Netflix and played lots of card games. We watched the snow continue to fall.

The next day we had another snow day. This time we played this game:

 The girls also decided it wasn't too cold to get out and play.

It didn't go so well - it actually was way too cold. They were back inside in minutes.

Friday the 6th was yet another snow day, but we were having some major cabin fever and showed up unexpectedly at Grandma's that evening just to get out of the house. Saturday the snow continued to fall and the Area Authority went ahead and cancelled church in the area. We had wonderful neighbors who would show up and shovel our driveway and sidewalk so fast we couldn't always catch them in the act.

On Sunday the freezing rain started, and then it warmed up and just turned to normal rain. Things started to melt a little bit. I went to bed at 10:00 and figured the girls would finally have school again the next day. Around midnight I heard Ed start banging around and found him moving furniture - we had water seeping into our living room. He crawled under the house to see if there was water there, and eventually was outside in the freezing rain at 3 am chipping the ice dam off our roof. It was quite the night. Somehow the girls slept through it all, and thankfully school was cancelled yet again the next day for ice. In the morning we surveyed the damage.

We got insurance involved, and eventually found a contractor, and this is the current state of our front room and garage:

There have been fans going constantly and 2 very loud de-humidifiers. The garage (where the ice dam leaked into) dried out pretty quickly, but the living room damage turned out to be from a roofing problem. The saga continues - more to come in February.

Around all the water damage issues, Keira began to get really sick, with all the same symptoms Kassie had. Everyone finally went back to school on Wednesday the 11th, but Keira only made it half a day before she was calling me to come get her. She didn't go back for over a week. Karoline also started to show the same symptoms. We had another snow day on Thursday (6 total! This school district has never had more than 2 in one school year - crazy!). Kim made it through school on Friday, then crashed with all the same stuff as the other girls...just in time for finals week. These 2 oldest girls of mine are amazing - they had fevers and absolutely no energy, and yet they managed to get end-of-semester projects and homework done while they were laying on the couch feeling awful. They studied for finals and emailed their teachers and tried so hard to keep up. Keira finally started feeling like she could function again just in time for finals, but Kimberlee was still completely drained. She went to school anyway and failed her PE final (we told the girl to tell her teacher she was sick, but no...she ran the laps and did the push-ups and sit-ups anyway), but did ok on everything else. 1 B and the rest As for both of them. So amazed with their tenacity. By the time the new semester started they were both finally better and ready for the new beginning.

Ed had the sickness too, but he still managed to get the ball rolling on getting our walls fixed, fly a couple trips (although he had to call in sick for one of them), and replace our sink disposal.

Kassie felt pretty dang good after she stopped hacking up a lung. She participated in her class Ice House project, making her very own ice house that managed to keep an ice cube from melting for several hours.

She also went to It's Great to Be 8 and is now so excited and anxious for her baptism (even though it won't be until next year).

Krista and I were the only ones who escaped the sickness from Hades. Krista is above such things. Instead, she got Student of the Month.

Krista's classmates said she is "respectful, smart, a good friend, compliments others, helpful, and has good priorities." I concur.

I played the organ for church again, but after the second week the chorister called me and asked if I had been taking vitamins - "you're amazing now!" she said. Nope, no vitamins. We changed buildings, and the chorister changed where she stands so I can see her so much better now. Which means I can follow her better. She only had to tell me to speed up once. And then she had a sub the last week, and that poor chorister kept trying to slow me down. Ha! I can't make everyone happy I guess.

And...January ended much the way it began - cold, snowy and gray. We haven't been able to see the road in front of our house in a long, long time. Idaho hasn't seen a winter like this since 1984, and I for one am hoping not to ever see one like it again. Ed is already planning our move to Florida. Hurry up Spring!