This is yesterday at 3:15 pm--flowers coming up in front of our house...

6:50 this morning, snow falling quickly! I had to cancel all of my piano and voice lessons for today because the crews were not out clearing the roads!  I think everyone was surprised by the snow because we were all busy talking about the pandemic yesterday and didn't even check the forecast!  

We ended up with about 5 inches of snow!  And little Arrowsmith made the Weather Channel!

Snow Day

We had a snow day today.  

Caeden, on the couch, playing Fortnite at 10am

  Looking the same at 4:13 pm

Snow Day

Yesterday it started snow at 1:00, and snow fell consistently until late evening, then off and on quite a bit through the night.  The wind kicked in early this morning, so it is hard to say exactly how much snow we got now that it's drifted.  I would guess 4-6 inches.  All after-school activities were canceled yesterday, and today was an all-out snow day.

This is what the road conditions were at about 10am today as I was getting ready to head southwest. Ew.

Caeden was invited down to Tracie's for a big snow day breakfast.  He brought the mail in for me when he came back.  It is coooooold out there!

I decided to head out around 11:45, hoping the roads had been cleared.  Route 9 between Arrowsmith and Normal was not great, but I went slow.  After I got to town, it was smooth sailing and no snow on the roads all the way to Greenville.  Whew!  

Soup!

It's soup season!  Man, I love to make soups!  However, Jeremy says soup is not a meal.  And Caeden is cutting weight so I have to be careful about what kind of soups I make.  Tonight I made Greek Lemon Chicken Orzo Spinach soup.  So yummy.

HS Concert

Midnight Blues, warming up on  microphones for the first time before the concert this evening.  This was the first concert with this group for 5 of the 12 members--including Caeden, Briley, Avry, Chase, and Cameron.  They are sounding great!

The ladies, rehearsing their number.

Sylvia loves this ensemble so much!  She just found last week that she was selected to perform in the ALL-STATE vocal jazz ensemble in January, and she is SO excited!!!

Concert Choir began the concert with Noel.  You can't see them at the beginning, but the duet/echo you hear is Kyle singing tenor and Caeden singing bass.

I only had one song to accompany for this group on this concert, as most of their songs were acapella.  But, Ma Bella Bimba was a fun one!

Midnight Blues!!!

The ladies...

Sylvia has a solo in Lately.

Here is a video playlist of most all of the songs and ensembles in the concert.
Some other notable moments tucked in here, are:
Concert Choir started a new tradition of singing The First Noel with senior soloists.
Concert Band started their portion of the concert with Sleigh Ride instead of ending with it. They played one of my favorites, Nettleton, and ended with a fun medley of songs from How the Grinch Stole Christmas.  (I must say the horn section is probably the best section in the band right now!) And as always, it's fun to watch Caeden move from one percussion instrument to another!

I have such a hard time getting photos of my kids after concerts, even if I run up to them immediately as it ends!  Caeden started putting away percussion instruments right away, and I didn't get a photo of him and Sylvia.  But, I was fortunate to get one of these 2 lovely horn-playing friends!  Such sweet friends and wonderful musicians!

Cold and Heat

It's getting cold.  We had snow on Halloween!  I heard an "old wives' tale" that the date of the first snow is the number of snows predicted for the winter...I hope we don't have 31 snows!  I've never heard that particular tale before, so I think someone just made it up and started spreading it when we got our first snow on the 31st.  Haha.

Our furnace drowned along with the water heater in the flood last May. We had a new water heater installed mid-May.  In August, we had to replace the dishwasher. In October, we had the house re-plumbed so we could run the water appliances better.  Since it was spring when we had the flood, and getting warmer, we decided we needed to wait on replacing the furnace since we had all these other expenses to cover--not to mention the cost of sending a kid to college!  So, here it is snowing and getting really cold in October, and we not only don't have a furnace, but we now have no way to pay for it...

We did get a little space heater, but even cranked all the way to 86 degrees, it doesn't do a lot when it's really cold out.

25 degrees on November 1!

It was so cold it felt like Christmas, so Sylvia and I put up the tree and Christmas decorations on November 9!

I saw a cute new cowl pattern and whipped this up to keep warm too.

On November 11, Hermes arrived (along with more snow!) to install our new furnace.  However, the weather continued to worsen throughout the morning, and they weren't able to get the furnace delivered!  They took apart our old furnace and did as much preparation for installation as they could, but left early in the afternoon to allow time to travel slowly back to their shop.  

Sylvia and Caeden were asked to take a nice picture for me to send to Annah, and they went for the awkward family photo version...

It was very cold in our house the past couple weeks.  We are thankful for electric blankets!  Jeremy even got out his fleece pajama pants and robe!

It was 50 degrees in our house, because the windchills were below zero outside...

Our friends the Ramirez fam loaned us a couple more space heaters.  It was 54 inside when the Hermes guys arrived today to finish the job.  

We now have a nice Trane furnace installed sideways and suspended 4 feet above ground.  So, if/when we have another basement flood, it should be safe.  They finished around noon today, and walked me through the thermostat and controls.  

By 1:30 it was back up to 68 degrees in the house, and I could teach piano lessons.

We are all thankful for heat.  It has been a very difficult 6 months for our family, financially, and emotionally.  While we are in a yucky spot right now, and that causes a lot of stress and worry for us, we are thankful that we were able to have access to the credit needed to have the furnace installed.  It's not something we could go without any longer.  We thank God for his provision for our family, and continue to trust Him.  

Halloween Annah's Birthday Snow

Today was Annah's 19th birthday!

Here she is seen celebrating on SnapChat.

She bought an angel food cake pan and a Funfetti mix and baked her self a birthday cake.  Her roommate Tori also celebrates a birthday this week, so they threw themselves a party.  I love that!  It is tech week here, so I was lucky to get to chat with her over text for a bit today.

Also, we had some early snow today!

Keep in mind that we have yet to replace our furnace that died in the flood last May, so a windchill of 12 degrees also feels pretty chilly inside our house! 

Sylvia took this pic of the football field at school today.  We ended up with a little over an inch of snow, but it was also windy and the roads drifted into a horrible dangerous mess!

Polar Vortex

It's another crazy winter weather week.  I've lost track of what day it is.  The kids didn't have school Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday.  And we have lots more of these...

This one, though, is the "winner!"  I've never seen a -62 windchill before this week!

Our furnace couldn't keep up with the cold and wind on Wednesday, and even though it was set at 69, it dropped to 63 in the house.  It made it back up by afternoon.  We had thick ice forming in our shower too.  The tub faucet was left dripping all night, but the drips formed into ice.  The shower head froze, so none of us got a shower that day.  We just sat under blankets all day anyway.  

Jeremy was asked to work from home, but he knew it would be a full house of teenagers and Nola, and he knew he wouldn't get any Wifi or quiet to get work done.  He had some deadlines to meet, so he braved the cold.  He got a nice warm shower at the gym, and peace and quiet at work since only one other person in his area was there.  He said there were only about 30 cars at work.  A lot of area businesses closed because it just wasn't safe to travel and be out and about.

 Sylvia watched Nola at our house on Wednesday.  She tried to keep her busy.  

They started out with LEGOs!

They played Guess Who while Annah and Ryan worked on a social studies project about planning a trip to several national parks.

 The girls wanted to try freezing bubbles, so I told them they could do it on the front porch for 4 minutes.  I don't think they even lasted that long.  Ridiculously cold! 

 But the freezing bubbles were cool!

Saw this in the news today!  Crazy!!!

Puzzles.  Nola still said she was bored.  And once school was canceled for Thursday, she said she just wanted to stay home and watch YouTube videos all day instead of being at our house where it's boring!  Haha!  We don't have a lot of toys for kids anymore, I guess.

Jacob came over on Thursday, and we all watched movies and felt like slugs.  Again.
I think it was Thursday.  

We have more snow and ice and wind and ridiculous cold this week.  I've lost track of what day of the week it is!  The kids didn't have school Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday.

We have all kinds of these warnings and advisories and screenshots of weather apps...

Jacob came over to hang out one, and he and Sylvia played Wii bowling.  

She wins every time...against anyone!

We do have a lot of snow.