Enough with the snow already!

I think we picked the wrong winter to move to Iowa. This has been one crazy season of snow. I'm sure we're breaking records for snowfall. We got another FOOT last night. Yeah, I said FOOT. See pictures below.

These pictures are actually from January - we have even more snow now.
The kids like to ride their trikes in the driveway despite the cold and snow. I guess they are looking forward to spring.


So, I hope everybody enjoyed that Superbowl. I loved seeing the mighty Patriots go down. I've never liked Belicheck and I can't stand how the media constantly labels him a genius, when all he is is a grumpy sourpuss cheater. Congrats to the Giants and to the NFC for finally producing a Superbowl champ! (5 years since the Tampa Bay Bucs won - wow) Hopefully the Bears can get back on track next year. They still have a lot of talent on their team - too much to miss the playoffs again. They just need a little O-line help and oh, yeah, some consistent QB play. Is that too much to ask?

We actually almost missed the Superbowl, due to an adventure we had on the way to our friend's Superbowl party. We got a lot of snow the afternoon before the Superbowl and we were considering just staying home instead of going to the party, but I thought it would be fun to go, so we loaded up in the car and set off through the unplowed snow. And the roads didn't really seem all that bad, as long as you stayed in the grooves the other cars had made. But I guess the roads got a little worse as we got farther away from the city and I didn't really notice. Suddenly I found my right side tires were in about two inches of snow, and as I tried to steer back to the left to get back in the grooves, the car wasn't moving left. So I steered a little more, still plowing snow, getting a little worried now. So I steered a little more and suddenly it found a little traction and jerked to the left. A little too far to the left because next thing I knew, we went into a spin. All I could think of as the car spun around at about 45 mph was those two little boys in the back seat. I thought about what could happen after we left the road - would we hit something? would we flip? All I could do was pray the boys would be OK. Fortunately, God was protecting us, because we went off in a very safe spot - a shallow ditch with a big drift of nice soft snow. We came to a pretty soft stop, actually. Silas immediately started crying, as he knew something had gone wrong, but Joel just asked, "Why did we stop? Why did you drive off the road, Daddy?"

Another huge blessing was that Delane, the host of our Superbowl party, has a big truck and towing chains so he was able to come pull us out of the ditch, and we didn't have to pay a tow truck to do it. The car was mostly OK, but since we went off the road facing backwards, the snow piled up underneath the front bumper and popped it right off the car. So there is some repair work to be done for that, and I think we're going to need snow tires on at least one of our vehicles. These all-season tires are a joke if you're in serious snow. Maybe before next winter.

The kids hanging out at the Superbowl party. Joel proudly wore his Urlacher jersey. Silas proudly picked his nose.

So, besides all the snow and sliding into a ditch, what else have we been up to? Jorie and I had a nice little getaway weekend at a Premier Designs rally in January. The boys did very well staying at Grandma's house for a couple nights. We also recently became members at the Children's Museum, which is at Coralville mall. (about 20 minutes south) This allows us to bring the boys as often as we want, for free! The great thing is, the membership is good for Children's museums across the entire country AND we can bring two guests for free too, so we can visist Children's museums whenever we travel for free, and bring our friends. Naperville and Chicago both have Children's museums that we hope to visit soon! Come with us and get in for free! Free is always good.

Joel says his favorite room at the museum is the construction room, which is really designed for older kids, but he loves working with the tools and bolting pieces of wood onto the house frame. Both Silas and Joel of course love the room with the giant train table and all the Thomas trains. Actually, we haven't even been to every room of the museum yet, since we have the membership, we don't feel the need to rush through everything and squeeze it all into one day, so we let the boys decide how long to stay in each area.

We've gotten a little more plugged into a church here, called "New Covenant". We went to an ABF class this past Sunday for couple with small children and it was excellent, so we are excited to feel like we might have found our church home. They have very good children's programs at this church too, which was important to us. Plus, we feel like we've made some friends, from the New Year's party we attended. Jorie has hung out with some of the girls and their kids a few times (the first trip to the Children's museum was a mom's day out) and we are planning to start up a Bible study group with a few couples too, so that will be a great time to get to know some people here better.

Joel's new bunkbed has a double bed on the bottom, so of course all the boys had to try it out.



Play-doh time! One of our favorite activities.