i'm going to cheat. today is actually feb 27 but i can timestamp it whatever i want. som i haven't really wrote in awhile. i have to go back to the 18th b/c after church we lead the youth since the pastor was on vacation. we brought everyone over to our house and went tubing on our hill and onto the frozen pond. here's a pic of matt and 2 others on or rather, above, a tube. and then the landing

we had a great time w/ them. the pics above are actually as rough as it got b/c we took down the jump that was at the end due to some "mishaps"

we had hot cocoa. we had a campfire going at the top of the hill. the last run down the hill took care of one of the tubes. it was just a two-tube chain with eight people and after they hit the pond there was only one tube left. i have more pics on my webshots album if anyone is interested. http://community.webshots.com/user/jenpolcyn

The kids had Thursday off to further sissyfy us.(all the roads were clear.) Friday they finally went back and were able to have their v-day parties. That night the kids were running around, matt was working on the computer and i passed out on the couch about 9:30pm (that's early for me) and woke up at 10:30pm to find both kids fell asleep wherever they laid down.

Today we had to get ready for a tubing party we're having w/ the teens from church tomorrow. Matt plowed the parking area, we cut wood for a fire (i got to chop wood for the first time, that i remember), and we filled up the innertubes.

Outside more than inside.
Another day off and more snow. and lots of blowing and drifting. I couldn't ask for a better Valentines Day- Matt was stuck home. For awhile the only vehicles allowed on the road were emergency vehicles. i guess getting a dozen roses for your wife is an emergency. matt was not sure why walmart was open if no one was suppose to be on the roads. laura also got a rose from her Daddy- her first one.

Anyway, after breakfast we blew up an inner tube and hooked it to the back of the 4wheeler and took rides up and down the snowy road. Then we took the tube down the hill to make a tube run.Are we done playing in the snow? We went in for lunch and when we were done our neighbors wanted us to come over and help make an igloo. So back outside we went. He used our skid-steer to make the pile and then he and matt took turns digging it out.

Here's inside the finished product.Yup, now we're done. I'm not sure how much I'd get done if I lived where there was always snow during winter. Goodnight.

SNOW STORM!!
No school today. We headed outside of course. This is a picture looking down to our pond where we sledded down to. You can see the kids on it.

Matt took the second half of the day off. It snowed steady all day until about 2pm. then it turned into sleet for awhile so we had to quit sledding. We realized we needed to get all the new snow off the pond but when we tried to plow it off we found that it was too thick and heavy. Another realization was that the pond has been filling up by way of the spring and now water was coming up around the sides. We thought we'd try and drain the pond off a little bit but Matt came back up w/ this:

ok, it's snowy but it's the valve. the water from the pond was rushing out of the overflow until the boys could rig up someway to fix it, quick. and someone was going to get wet. matt was the lucky one since james did it last time. yes, this has happened before. they did it before too much water came out. We finished the night off w/ chili and relaxing on the couch. at about 9:30pm i heard a sound that makes me crazy jealous inside when i hear it and am not on it- a snowmobile. maybe someday we'll get a few.

yesterday afternoon matt came out and ice skated w/ us. we had fun. it's always a scary feeling when someone is racing behind you and they're gaining on you and you can't get away. matt's fast.

tonight we went skating again. gotta get in all the skating we can before it warms up.

for supper we had tacos b/c we're trying to use up the over 50 tortillas that were left behind from the snow birds. while we were living in chicago we got many tortillas since we lived in a hispanic neighborhood. we would make dessert tortillas which we did tonight as well. we warm it in the pan, butter it, sprinkle it w/ sugar and cinnamon and roll it up. yummy! this brought back a memory from chicago. i think we had made dessert tortillas for snack. matt and i went to talk to our upstairs neighbors, whom we miss greatly, and when we came down we found that adam didn't quite finish his in time before sleep overtook him:

The kids have been begging to go skating and they thought by the time they got well the pond would thaw. no such luck this week, not that i want it to. as you will see the neighbor kids got in on the fun too. the older one is kendra. she is in 4th grade and the other is tallie (natalia) 2nd grade, same as laura. they do a lot together.

here's the first pic and this one is actually at request from my best friend dana who is basking in the FL sun on an internship, actually she's working her butt off for God, maybe i shouldn't use those two words in the same sentence. at any rate, she's doing great things. so here's your snow angel (who is my angel)

the snow had blown off a fourth of the pond making the remaining covered in snow. that was actually the smoothest. so i shoveled some trails and then got everyone's iceskates on. then i shoveled some more and eventually got to skate too. we had a blast and stayed out until dark.

Adam, Kendra, Laura, Tallie

i'm going to try putting video on here. sorry dial-uppers.

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What have I been doing the last four days? Taking care of sick kids. Laura and Adam are doing better today. School was cancelled today b/c of the low temp. something about the walkers and the busses. i guess people don't know how to bundle up. they've already cancelled school for tomorrow.

We're on a waiting list right now to get the gas well swabbed. So for the next week and a half we're using kerosene heaters and conserving the gas. Don't worry, the house is drafty enough to keep it ventilated. we're not using the basement right now. its too hard to keep warm. so we're using the main floor for now. it's not "my home" but it does have a dishwasher.

I don't write everyday b/c i don't think there's much to write about. so i'm going to try and pay attention better to the smaller things that happen. here's what i thought of for today:

it started saturday. i sat on a chair in the livingroom and when i got up i realized there was something "wet" (actually kinda sticky) on the chair. i washed my pants off right away, . well today i emptied a garbage bag out that matt's sister brought last FRIDAY w/ some hand-me-downs for adam. as i got to the bottom i smelled one of the sickest smells- spoiled raw meat. i immediately remembered the bag sitting in the same chair that i sat in on saturday. they forgot they put meat in that bag. GROSS!! i hope i didn't gross you out. at least you didn't have to smell it.

well, we will see what happens tomorrow.