In case you were wondering how the weather has been in Michigan this winter: It's been cold. The average temperature in February was only 15 degF. To give you an idea, St. Petersburg, Russia had an average temperature in February of 37.7 degF. (I know Mom & Dad G are in Novgorod but I couldn't find data on that city). Orem, UT was 40 degF. Chula Vista, CA was 60 degF. (Snort - I might need to move in with you guys!)One day I was wearing my fingerless gloves to the store and when I put the groceries in the trunk I couldn't feel my fingers. I had to use my arms to lift things out of the cart as fast as I could. Finally I got in the car and just sat in front of the heater for a few min before I could drive. It was so cold that I had to bring all our sodas inside so they wouldn't explode in the garage! It's weird that the outside weather some days was colder than our deep freeze (which is -4 degF).
Winter storm Linus was the third heaviest snowstorm on record in Detroit. We ended up with 17" of snow overnight!!! And just a few months ago we had record breaking rainfall! These photos are before we went to bed and after we woke up (and that's the real snow fall - not a pile from the wind):
Don't worry though, the warm front was short lived. Today I was sitting at the kitchen table and I heard weird crackling sounds coming from the windows. I spent several minutes investigating before I realized the sound was from frozen rain drops hitting the glass. Freezing rain, lovely. My friend came over to drop something off. I met her by her car. The snow from earlier in the day was frozen so it looked like snow, but cracked like ice. Eerie.
The freezing temperatures make it difficult to play in the snow. We have to wait for "warm" days to get the girls outside. These first photos are prior to Linus. Scarlett and Jake built a snowman and made snow "angles" (i think she wanted to make a snow "angels" but she started too close to the patio, so they turned out more like snow "angles") Scarlett came inside and told me "There's hot air and cold air outside. I think there's going to be a tornado." Yikes! I think the hot air was from our dryer vent.
After the big snowfall Scarlett was beggggging to play outside. It was still pretty cold, but the snow looked so fun! Luckily Jake was snowed in that day and was working from home. So we waited til his lunch break and got everyone ready to go outside. As you can see from the tears we didn't even last 5 minutes out there! It took twice as long to get everyone ready! Scarlett was so cold she wouldn't even turn around for a photo. We came inside, warmed up the girls in front of the fireplace. She didn't bother me about playing outside again for like 2 weeks after that! (in case you're wondering Scarlett is eating a long string of apple peel in that photo).
See the little hill at the top of the driveway? I was taking the trash out one night and saw the hill... then I saw the sled in the garage... one minute later I was belly-diving over the snow mound into our backyard. I sled down that hill like 3 times before I decided I needed to act like a responsible adult. But it was really fun!
Scarlett asked to go outside but I told her we couldn't go out there during a blizzard. She looked out the window and said "It's not a lizard (blizzard)! It's fun to be in the snow and catch snowflakes on your tongue!" So finally on a warmish evening Jake took Scarlett out for a few rides down our little hill.
I wanted to try blowing bubbles outside cause I saw on Pinterest that they can freeze. It worked, but it is hard to see on the video. I think if the wind wasn't blowing it would have been better - but still a cool trick (like that time we made a cloud with boiling water). Plus it's just funny to watch Jake blow bubbles - maybe he needs to spend more time in nursery ;-) (or maybe I need to buy better bubble solution instead of the dollar store stuff blah blah blah).
One day we looked out our front window and saw a few squirrels. The twirls went crazy! They just loved watching them! Sorry these videos are long, I just don't feel like editing them...
After that I decided that Scarlett could feed the squirrels in the backyard with the bread butts (or heals or whatever you call them, the ends that we usually don't eat). I think we had like 5 or 6 squirrels fighting over the bread! They would come up, grab a piece, then run over to the snowball, climb on top, and eat their food - probably enjoyed the view. After watching them for a bit we ate lunch. Scarlett started our lunch prayer like this "fsfsffpfpthsthsfthpthspf" I asked her what she was doing and she looked at me and said "I'm saying the prayer in squirrel talk." haha! I told her that we speak English in our prayers, but thank you for thinking of the squirrels. That girl...
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