Welcome to the Hotel Blizzard Juno

Blizzard Juno was forecasted to be one for the record books in terms of high winds, snow accumulation, and power outages. And, living in the middle of a forest on a dead-end street has made for some long lived outages in storms past.

So we preemptively put ourselves up in a hotel near Peter's work for a couple of nights. We packed a box of food, a bunch of games, and our swim suits and spent the blizzard vacationing. It was mostly splendid except that Cece was not a fan of sleeping at night. Particularly memorable was the dinner we cobbled together from the vending machine because of the travel ban.

Oh yes, and we watched too much TV.

Baby Whisperer

My Dad is a baby whisperer. He can take the most stubborn and stranger-shy baby (that would be Cece in this case) and make a fan out of her. It's always amazing to watch.

Besides caring for Mason and Willow, he still found time to come visit us (sometimes with kids, sometimes without- he even walked to our house once and later biked to our house). Sometimes I still I hear something like a knock and I wonder for a brief moment if he's come to visit. He's fun to hang out with.

In true dad fashion, I mentioned a few things around the house I was hoping to tackle, and like magic they were all done by the time he left (basement door plexi-glass, kids' room light, and garbage disposal switch). 

Frozen Flu

We took Dad out to the frozen reservoir. This was the first time in his life he had ever been on a frozen pond/lake. The ice hockey players were out and the pond was solid. We monkeyed around for a bit, throwing snow, climbing trees, shoveling (who doesn't want to shovel a pond?!?), and then hiked back.

Dad caught some pretty severe chills out on that ice and struggled to raise his core temperature when we got back. It was only later when we realized he wasn't hypothermic- he had the flu. We all spent the next week and a half passing it around (it hit me, Ivy, and Cece).

Friends Teach each other How to Gamble

Our very good friends trekked back to Boston for a lovely visit. They left 3 of their kids home, much to our older three's chagrin, but brought their adorable baby who is only a month older than Cece. We had fun watching them interact with their burgeoning social skills as they cooed, patted each other's hair, and gouged each other's eyes out.

Activities enjoyed by grownups included: running around the reservoir, walking on the reservoir ice, climbing a tree by the res, going to the gym and spinning in our own private studio session, chatting, philosophizing, shop talking, and learning the game of tripoly, which involved some penny poker where I discovered I have a latent love of gambling.

Their oldest daughter had the opportunity to be cast as young Jo in the play Little Women, so we went out to the Alcott Orchard House.

We also stopped by the bird refuge just in time to watch a couple of elegant swans flying off into the sunset. The light was amazing, but it was too cold to linger.