Escape from Snowmaggedon

Sorry for the extreme lack of posts lately. But basically all there is to talk about is snow, snow, and more snow. The general idea of the last month:

- We are now the official snowiest winter on record in Boston - but we got all of that snow in a 3 week period! Apparently we hit 100 inches of snow? The meteorologists were all very excited. We just grumbled at the news.

- We are also the 2nd coldest February on record, which means essentially that no snow has melted.

- The kids had 6 snow days in 3 weeks. Henry hasn't had a full week of school since the week he came back from Christmas break.
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- The snow around our house is unbelievable. 4 feet in the "compact" areas, with 8-9 foot drifts and piles. It's so deep and cold that the kids don't want to go outside at all.

- We are all officially sick of pancake mornings, movie afternoons, all toys, all games, craft projects, glow stick dance parties, the TV, and the ipad. We are officially sick and tired of winter. But, considering this is how the playground looked 2 weeks ago (there is another foot on top of it now!) and the fact that it is -20 with wind chill. Spring is looking very far away.

Last week was school vacation week and we managed to escape! We were supposed to leave Monday, but due to various weather issues we had to postpone our departure to Wednesday. We managed to time our visit to coincide with a cold snap in Florida - but 50 degrees in Florida is 50 degrees higher than Boston, and wearing less than 10 layers of clothes was magnificent! The kids were excited just to be out of the house:

Upon arrival we visited our usual favorite spots: The Gumbo Limbo Nature Center:

Sugar Sands Park:

The zoo:

The beach:

And the pool:

It was a great trip despite the cold. Now back to Boston - hopefully Spring arrives soon!

Happy Valentine's Day

They say Eskimos have 100 words for "snow" - we need to start learning some of them. Because we have a whole lot of snow going on here.


There's our snowman!

It's getting harder to get to our front door:

And all walks are an adventure:

More snow. And more snow.

So, you may have heard we got a little snow in our area? Apparently we broke the record for most snow in a 7 day period EVER here. Mire than a winter's worth of snow in a week. It's a lot of snow. We had the big 2 foot storm last week, where the kids had snow days on Tuesday and Wednesday, and then yesterday we got another 14 inches on top of that. Love;y. The kids were off yesterday and again today for snow removal. Add on to that that Elliot had a low grade fever all weekend so we kept him inside and we are all going STIR CRAZY.

Here's a view of some of our snow as of this morning. The giant piles by our front door are from all the snow from last week's storm falling off the pitched roof. The most recent storm's worth of snow is still on the roof, so those piles will only grow, It will be....interesting. Plus we have some crazy icicle action going on.

Our snowman is buried. And you can see the very top of Henry's soccer net peaking out of the snow.

The kids have done many art projects, Lego creations, games, Magnatile buildings, cookie baking, iPad using, movie watching, and general running around the house. Last night Henry informed me he was bored with TV. You KNOW they have been stuck inside for too long when that happens! We have all fingers crossed that school is open tomorrow (and Elliot continues on the health upswing so he can go!)

Snow!

We had our first real snow of the year today, so Henry got an afternoon full of snowball fights, snowman building (he named him "Steve"), and snow fort construction. Elliot wimped out and chose to stay inside.

Arizona

After Polar Vortex 2014 Mike and I decided that this winter we couldn't wait until February break for a warm(er) weather trip. This year we decided to take advantage of the long winter break from school and head off to Arizona for 5 days for a break from insufferable New England Winters. Alas, we were taunted with an unusually mild December here, and an unusually cold time in Arizona (one day was warmer in Boston than Phoenix!)but despite not being able to lounge poolside very much we had a great time.

WE survived the flight over fairly well, despite strong winds slowing down our flight time to almost 7 hours (God bless Steve Jobs and the invention of the iPad). WE stayed at the Phoenician in Scottsdale, which was amazing - one of my favorite hotels.

Henry didn't let the cool air stop him and went in the pool almost every day

Elliot has decided he hates all things water (pools, baths....) so stuck to his lounge chair

Of course Henry's favorite part was the water slide:

Our first full day we headed to the Phoenix zoo, which was very large and fun. They had a carousel that the kids loved:

A train ride all through the zoo, and of course the usual elephants, jaguars, monkeys...

The next day we headed out for some light hiking:

Henry stole my camera at one point:

Henry's absolute favorite part of the trip was going to "Rawhide" - a small "Western Town" with cowboys roaming about, and activities like mechanical bull riding and cowboy stunt show.

Henry rode the mechanical bull (7 seconds!), did the zip line, bought a cowboy hat, saw two stunt show, and ate fried rattlesnake with his dinner. He LOVED it.

New Years Eve was rainy, so we took the kids to the Musical Instrument Museum. The room where they got to play with the instruments was, of course, the favorite:

For the evening, we decided to forgo any fancy New Years Eve activities (particularly due to the 2 hour time difference) and instead stayed in, ordered room service pizza, let the kids pick out some candy, and watched "The Box Trolls" which ended up being a perfect way to spend the evening:

Our last day we headed out hiking again:

It was a great time! Sadly, the arctic weather waited to hit Boston right after we returned. Here's hoping Florida in February will be warm for us!