Wrapping Up the Week of February 15

Whew! What a BUSY week! AND COLD!

Monday was one of the few no-snow-in-the-forecast days, so the girls and I planned to leave after lunch on Monday to head to my parents' house for the rest of the week.

I got up Monday morning, checked the weather, and saw that what had been Tuesday's snow was now supposed to hit mom & dad's house starting around 5pm. So I told the girls that we were still leaving after lunch but needed to keep moving and make sure we were ready to leave RIGHT after lunch to for sure beat the snow (I was hoping to fit school stuff in that morning, so that was going to make for a busy, but doable, morning). Then my dad messaged me and said that the weather report he'd seen said the snow might be starting around 2pm. EEK! It's a good 2 1/2 to 3 hour drive, and the back roads to my parents' house include some hills that my car can't get up when it's too slippery. So . . . new plan . . . forget about school, and not sure what we're doing for lunch, let's just get packed and head out.

We did it! Got to my parents' house well before 2pm, and of course, the snow didn't start until around 5pm after all. But it's all good.

Lexie was asking my mom about Mom's wedding dress, and Mom pulled it out for her to see, and try on. It fits!! Isn't at all too tight, and is still too long, but still, pretty close to fitting. And Lexie LOVED it! Ashlyn prefers a more "ball gown" look.

That led to discussions of weddings in general. My dress was "preserved" (sealed up) by the cleaners after the wedding, but since it's stored at my parents' house, we pulled it down and the girls looked at the bodice that you CAN see in the box. Since I know it's still several sizes too big for them, at this point, we didn't unseal the box.

Mom also pulled out some formals from when I was a teenager, and the girls had great fun playing dress-up in them. And again, they fit them, sigh!

The girls had great fun playing dress-up though. They brought the dresses home (not the wedding dress, obviously) so they can write, and perform a play.

After much deliberation, we finally decided that Tuesday was the best day to go to Gettysburg (going to the Gettysburg museum before Little Bit turns 6 (next month) and has to have her own ticket was our main reason for going down to Mom and Dad's this week).  On the downside, there was still snow on the back roads when we left Tuesday morning, but not enough to be a problem since Dad has 4 wheel drive. We decided the fact that there wasn't any actual snow predicted to fall that day AND that the temperatures would be warmer (up to 30, whereas later in the week the highs were around 15 degrees), made it our best bet.

We called to confirm they were open, and were told that the museum and cyclorama were open but many of the roads through the battlefield were still closed. Since our plan was to just do the indoor stuff that day (we'll go back in the spring/summer and do a driving tour of the battlefield as well as visiting Eisenhower Farm) that was perfect.

We got there just as the movie was starting, so headed right in, watched the movie, went to the cyclorama (which was wonderfully NOT crowded this time of year!) and then headed into the museum.

The Junior Ranger book included a pretty in depth "tour" of the museum with one question about each of the main exhibits, so Lexie and Ashlyn spent a good part of the day working on that. Little Bit got bored (I'm hoping to at least sort of have her do the Driving Tour part of the Junior Ranger, which will be sufficient for her to earn a Junior Ranger for her age range, but this Junior Ranger book, despite saying it starts at age 6, doesn't have any "new reader" options. Everything expects lots of reading, comprehending, and writing out of answers, so we shall see . . . ) pretty quickly and amused herself by taking my mom's phone and taking thousands of pictures around the museum LOL.

Wednesday we headed into town to do some shopping at the outlets and such. The weather report said snow would start early afternoon, so we kept an eye on things, stopped to see my Grandma after lunch. She was so happy to see the girls :) And then headed home. It started snowing a couple miles from mom and dad's house and soon after we got home, it was snowing pretty hard, so we timed things perfectly!

Thursday was BITTERLY cold! We decided that was a day to stay inside at all costs! I think Dad was the only one who even went outside all day long. The girls had more fun with dress-up, and worked with Dad on the dollhouse project. They chose wall paper and flooring for some of the rooms and helped him get started on cutting it and such.

Thursday afternoon my brother's girlfriend's son came by after school and played with Little Bit until supper time. Lexie was a good big sister and helped them build with lincoln logs and legos, and generally kept their play moving amiably together.

Friday morning we packed up and headed home (in still bitterly cold weather). All the driving to and from Mama and Papa's house gave us a great opportunity to finish listening to Men of Iron. So between that, Gettysburg, and the Henty novel we're listening to for bedtime, it was a rather history-oriented week school-wise :)

Since Daddy was home when we got home, the girls settled in for a relaxing afternoon at home while I headed back out for library books and groceries, and to pick up a couple things we needed for the new curriculum Little Bit is starting this week.

Sabbath brought MORE snow, but it waited until (almost) after church. We got home and watched the snow fall all afternoon. I do love watching snow fall, as long as I don't have to go anywhere :)

While we were at church, I finally remembered to pick up our sweatshirts (for Jeans Sabbath). Little Bit decided to try Daddy's on. It's just a little big on her LOL.