PawPaw and DeeDee

On Tuesday of Winter Break we headed to Paw Paw and Dee Dee's house for a visit.  I worked while the girls played and had a welcome change of scenery since we had been working so many days with them home this winter.  On Thursday afternoon PawPaw and DeeDee had appointments so I took the girls to the Montgomery Zoo.  It's a really great zoo and we had a nice time. It sprinkled on us for about the first hour we were there and then it turned out really nice.

Their schools were in session so we practically had the whole zoo to ourselves.  Their exhibits allowed you to get much closer looks at the animals than our zoo.

 

 Right after the first picture was taken Emily ran towards me to go inside the bird cage and skidded across the cement.  She hit hard and scraped her knees and chin and hands.  I know it hurt and we caused quite a fuss in the zoo.  A sweet family had their son run to the van to get band-aids and gave us several for her.  Here she is bandaged up:

 These pictures of the monkeys and the alligator is the part of the zoo I had growing up.  It was a much smaller zoo back then and walking back thru this section brought back many memories of childhood trips to the zoo:

 I wonder if this is the same alligator from when I was a kid.  Looks like he hasn't moved from his spot in 30 years!

 Loved the cat/lion/tiger exhibits where they were all so close.  This leopard was pacing back and forth the whole time we were there and I think it was because she was telling us to back away from her cubs that were in the back of the exhibit:

 

 

 These tigers are beautiful.  They came right up to the window and Abigail got a good look!

There were also several peacocks and peahens that roamed freely around the zoo.  We saw them several times thru out our visit:

We also got to ride the train and see more bird exhibits:

 

This rhino was huge!

We went to the petting zoo and there were 3 baby goats just a week old.  The girls loved seeing them and the babies were super cute!

 

 We played on the playground for a bit and then went to meet PawPaw and DeeDee for dinner:

We came back home on Saturday afternoon to get ready for school to FINALLY start up again on Monday!!!

Winter Break

It's hard to believe that after 9 days of missing school in Jan/Feb, the kids had a winter break . . . but the school system went ahead with it.  So on Monday we went to the zoo in gorgeous weather:

 There were 3 lion cubs born recently and we got to see them out playing:

 We also got to see the Baby Twin Pandas!!!

 I love this picture of Abigail!!!!

More and More Snow!

We started off February with the hopes of no more winter weather.  But it was short lived.  The girls actually went to school for an entire week the first week of February!  Joe and I both got strep that week but after a couple of doses of antibiotics and we were somewhat functional again. I also went to a "Favorite Things" party one evening.  You brought 3 of the same item that was around $10.  At the party you put your name in a hat 3 times and each person got up and explained why what they brought was their favorite thing that they used.  They drew 3 names out of the hat and gave their favorite thing to those 3 people.  It was a lot of fun.  I took the 31 thermal water bottle holder and came home with lotion, starbucks gift card, crazy socks and eye shadow.

Then the 2nd week of February we were hit with another ice/snow storm.  The girls went to school on Monday and then we had the rest of the week off to play in more snow.  This snow was more of an ice mixture so most of our time was spent indoors.  Joe came home Monday night with his flash light in case we lost power:

 

And the girls thought it would be fun to play in their swim suits.  Even though it was snowing outside and only in the 20s:

We ventured out a little to play in the snow before it melted:

 This was our sad attempt at a snowman since most of it was slushy ice by the time we tried to make one:

 Friday was Valentine's Day so the girls made the shape of a heart and asked me to look over the loft to look down on them:

By Friday afternoon the roads were clear enough to drive on so I took the girls to the American Girl store so Emily could spend the rest of her birthday money:

 We also rode the carousel.  This was the first time going that I didn't have a child wanting me to cling on to them for dear life.

 On Saturday we lounged around and the girls enjoyed playing in their forts.

After almost a week of being out of school we were ready to start their winter break!

Snowpocalypse

This has been a CRAZY week!  On Tuesday they predicted some light snow by mid afternoon.  But at 10:30 it started snowing early and I got text messages that the schools were closing early.  I got the girls home and we enjoyed playing in the snow that was continuing to fall:

 

 

 

Little did we know that all of Atlanta was on the way to being in a grid lock on all the interstates and highways.  Lots of people didn't make it home and spent the night on the interstate, kids spent the night at schools because the buses couldn't complete their routes or their parents couldn't get to them.

 

Joe left work at 2:30 to head our way and didn't get home until 11:00 p.m.  He only has to drive 10 miles and doesn't get on the interstate.  There were several hills that cars got completely stuck on so Joe (and lots and lots of others) walked the last 3.5 miles to get home.

The next day there was nothing to do but play in the snow some more.  So thankful our family was all together:

 Abigail asked me to get her beach chair out so she could keep working:

 The girls were out of school the rest of the week. We were able to drive to Joe's car on Thursday morning.  So for January the girls were out of school 5 days due to weather!

Chili and Bingo Night

Last night Emily's school had their Chili and Bingo Night.  I cooked Chili for the event and won 3rd place!  I got a $25 visa gift card:

 

Emily loved playing Bingo:

 And she won at Bingo and got a prize:

Today we spent the morning getting Emily's American Girl Boutique together: