POLAR VORTEX

There is a polar vortex moving through the midwest causing subzero temperatures.  They cancelled school for several days.  It was fun to have Alex home for a couple of days but the kids had cabin fever since we couldn't go outside to play.  The kids got a little crazy with the stamps.  Good thing it's washable ink.  A couple days later Mike and the kids made a big snow mound in the back yard complete with tunnel and slide.

FAMILY PICTURE

My mom is collecting family pictures of all her kids to contribute to family history files.  We hadn't taken a family picture since Maggie's blessing so I decided that we needed a quick update.  Using a tripod and timer we were able to snap this picture after church.  For what it was I think it turned out quite well, but hopefully this summer we will get some better family pictures.

SLEDDING

The weekend of Martin Luther King Jr Day was very interesting.  Saturday it was raining.  That night the temperatures plummeted below zero.  We woke up to several inches of snow on top of ice and high winds causing snow drifts.  Temperatures were in the single digits and with the wind it was even colder.  Church was cancelled and we had a little sacrament meeting at home.  I am grateful for Mike and that he is worthy to have and use the priesthood to bless our family.  We spent the day playing games and watching church videos.  Mike took the kids out for a few minutes to play in the snow.  He pulled them around on the sleds.  They also tried to pull him without much success.  Maggie wasn't sure how to handle the snow.  She didn't cry but she also didn't smile.  Monday was still cold but the sun came out.  Mike took the kids sledding.  The snow was icy so the kids had fun sliding very fast down the hill.  Because of the cold it wasn't very busy.  The kids had one accident and crashed into the hay bales on the side of the sliding area.  They bonked heads but were okay to continue.  Overall they really enjoyed it.

EMERGENCY EVACUATION

One Monday night around midnight Maggie woke up.  I fed her and put her back down before returning to bed.  I smelled skunk, which isn't unusual.  Then it got really strong.  Mike and I were both up because it smelled so bad.  Then the smell changed and smelled almost like the bad egg smell of a gas stove.  Then it had a burning smell to it.  We were nervous of a gas leak so we called our gas company.  They told us to evacuate to the street and wait for an employee to come and check it out.  We got the kids up, loaded up the car, and drove out to the street to wait.  It was 15 degrees outside.  The kids were tired, cold, and confused.  It didn't take long for the guy from the gas company to arrive.  He and Mike went in to check it out.  The good thing is that we did not have a gas leak.  The bad news is that it was a skunk.  It had sprayed right outside our house.  The spray has some oils in it that got into our furnace and had been burned, hence the burning smell.  We went back in and tried to air it out the best we could.  We put the kids back down at 2 am and Mike and I put up fans and sprayed vinegar to help the smell.  We didn't go to bed until after 3 am and couldn't sleep because it smelled so bad.

The next day (Tuesday) I opened the windows in shifts to air it out since it was 20 degrees outside.  Mike kept getting whiffs of skunk all day.  Alex's school teacher called and wondered why Alex's coat smelled like skunk.  I explained to her what happened and said I just didn't have time to do laundry before school.  By the end of the day the house smelled better but the sun room still had a very strong odor.  We assumed he had taken up residence under the sun room.

Wednesday I call a pest control company to come set traps.  They wouldn't be able to come until late Thursday afternoon.  In the meantime we still smell like skunk.  Did you know a skunk's spray can be smelled for a mile away?  Try getting that strength of a smell out of your house when they spray point blank.  For several days I did shifts of opening windows.  Fans were going non stop.  Candles were lit.

The traps were set on Thursday and on Friday they were still empty.  Saturday morning the kids ran to look at the traps.  They came back saying one trap had the skunk and the other was empty.  Excited Mike and I went to look.  It was a possum!  I took it to the middle of the yard and let it go.  It ran right for the house and hid under the sun room.  We couldn't believe it.  That night before bed I checked the traps and saw something in on.  I went to look and it was the possum again!  This time I took it out front and let it go.  It ran across the street to our neighbor's house.

On Sunday morning we woke up to snow.  I looked at the traps and saw footprints going from the sun room right past the traps and back again.  That little skunk was not going to get the best of us.  I blocked off any small hole around the sun room.  Then I used wood to barricade the trap at the hole in the back where it went in and out.  It only had one way out...right into the trap.  We waited for days and nothing.  Meanwhile the sun room reeks of skunk and we keep getting whiffs of it throughout the house.

The following Saturday (Jan 27) night before bed I checked the traps and I saw something.  It was a cat.  We were terribly disappointed.  That night Mike brainstormed several ways to scare the skunk out and/or kill it.  I told him to settle down and that I would call the pest control company on Monday to see what they had to say.

The pest control company came and looked under the sun room with a camera.  He didn't see anything!  It had been over 3 weeks and we hadn't caught anything, so I told him to just take the traps.  For weeks we could still smell skunk but the smell eventually went away, almost completely.  Every once in a while we can still get a hint of skunk.

A few days after they removed the traps we saw a skunk dead in the road about a half mile from our house.  We imagined it was the problem skunk and celebrated.

This has certainly been an adventure.

Waiting in the car while Mike and the guy from the gas company check things out

The possum we caught

The possum we caught

The cat we caught

NEW YEAR BUG

After returning from Connecticut most of us took turns entertaining a stomach bug.  It started with me, then Shane, then Alex.  Alex missed 3 days of school because it hit her the night before school started up again.  The week we were all sick I did at least a dozen loads of laundry.  When Alex got sick she threw up in her bed, down the wall, and onto Shane's bed.  Luckily it only got on his comforter.  Mike moved the bunk beds away from the wall and helped Alex shower while I gathered the soiled linens and cleaned the wall and side of the beds.  All the while Shane slept soundly, even with the lights on, baby crying, bed moving, people talking, and blanket switching.  I put another blanket on Shane, put the beds back, fed Maggie, put her back in her crib, and turned off the light and Shane slept on.  I made Alex a blanket bed by my bed and gave her a bowl.  The poor girl was throwing up all night.  She stayed home from school for the next couple of days to make sure she was well.  Later that week it decided to exit the other end as well so she missed another day and rested over the weekend.  I don't have any pictures but I'm sure you don't want to see any.  Happy New Year everybody.

BLU TRACKS

Mike and Shane pooled their birthday money to buy blu tracks for Shane's cars.  You can create numerous types of tracks with loops, turns, or jumps.  It has been a great indoor toy while the weather has been very cold.  Mike and the kids love playing with the cars to see which ones perform the best.