On February 2, Groundhog Day, the groundhog predicted spring was on its way, but we woke up to several new inches of snow overnight! I don't think the groundhog knew what it was talking about...
We hosted a teenage Superbowl party on the afternoon of Sunday the Second. The twins each invited a few kids, and 7 came! I made a table's worth of snack food. It was a stress-free event and I liked having their friends here.
I really liked the Dorito's commercial, the continuing Tide commercials, the Alexa commercial, and the one that had Aquaman taking off his "fake"muscle arms and hair when he got home--so funny! Shakira and J.Lo were the halftime performers, and they did a good job. The game was the 49ers vs. the Chiefs. The Chiefs won for the first time in 50 years. We had our traditional guessing game, and Jonah won the bag of chocolate for guessing the correct winning team with the closest score.
On Monday the 3rd, school was cancelled in Mud Lake due to the snow and wind, so Kanyon and I got to stay in Salmon an extra day! I slept in, then worked on some projects at home, and then I went to the golf course with Josh to help him with a trimming project. In addition to the massive tree he took down on #9 fairway, he was also trimming way back the row of lilac bushes around #5 green. He trimmed while I loaded up the trailer with the limbs, and then we dumped the trailer in his massive burn pile, and repeated the process. We worked together for 3 hours on that project and stopped for the day. Although it was cold, it was nice and sunny and at least the wind wasn't blowing in Salmon like it was in Mud Lake!
He had started the lilac bush trimming project towards the end of January. This was the BEFORE picture:
There was a LOT of trimming to do! He worked on it for several days, sporatically (in between weather storms, other trimming, snow plowing, and bus driving), and after a few weeks, this was what it looked like AFTER it was all completed, which is a huge difference!:
It had been a long winter, and I was hopeful after hearing the groundhog's report, but it clearly lied! I drove home to Salmon on Wednesday night the 5th after school, and as I was driving into town, a HUGE snowstorm came. It snowed at least 5 inches overnight. When I woke up on Thursday, I knew the drive was going to be a doozy. School in Salmon was cancelled due to not all the roads being plowed yet, and the snow was still coming down. I drove slowly, and thankfully made it okay. The worst roads were on the way to Salmon from my house, and then to about Tendoy on Hwy 28. When I got to school, the snow was caked on SO thick! Josh told me that evening that it was still snowing, and was over 7 inches total!
On the 7th, Josh was supposed to bring a bus to Idaho Falls to get maintained, but all the bus trips for the weekend got cancelled due to the snowfall. There was ANOTHER 6 inches that fell overnight in Salmon!
Micah had an indoor track meet in Pocatello on the evening of Friday the 7th. The original plan was that Josh was going to drive the bus to Idaho Falls to get fixed, and I'd pick him and Micah up there after school and drive them to Pocatello together. However, once the bus trips were cancelled, Josh changed plans and ended up driving the silver box car to Mud Lake instead--which made me a little hesitant for them to be driving our smallest car on roads that had such a huge amount of recent snowfall, but Josh said after Gilmore, there was nothing, so it worked out alright. Once they arrived, we drove my car from there. The indoor track meet wasn't too busy (due to several teams cancelling since they didn't want to travel in the winter weather). It was the first one that Josh and I had attended, so I was grateful it wasn't overly populated so I could figure out what was happening (multiple events are going on at once). Micah ran the 1600m and the 800m. He ran the mile in 4:58, a new PR beating his last meet's time by 2 seconds! It was so exciting to watch him go from last to first in his heat! He also did good in the 800m. He had a great time, and was so proud of himself for getting a new PR and doing so well, and he even met a new friend! (I brought my nice camera with me, but sadly I hadn't realized that my SD card was still in my laptop at home from when I transferred pictures earlier, so I had to take pictures with my cell phone instead, which aren't that high-quality.) After the races were done, we decided to just drive home to Salmon that night because we were celebrating Kanyon's birthday the following day. We stopped to get dinner and then again in Mud Lake to get the other car and Kanyon on the way home.
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He is a great racer, but struggles with starting fast. This is on
the first corner of the race: he was in last place on the far left.
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| He has a great, long stride! |
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| He started passing the other runners quickly. |
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The track was only 200 meters long, so he had go around it
8 times in the mile. Within the last 2 laps, he was in 4th place...
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| ...then 3rd place... |
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...and on the final turn, he was in the lead and
finished first in his heat! What an exciting finish!
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We got home super late (after 11pm), and when I awoke the next morning, I couldn't believe the amount of snowfall Salmon had received in just a few days' time! Josh was running out of places to plow the snow! It was already so high right next to the house and garage, so he had to dump snow in the tree ring and in the small field next to the house.
We went out to dinner with Amanda and Ryan on Saturday night the 8th. We went to Twin Peaks because we hadn't been there since they re-opened under new ownership. The views were gorgeous, the food was good, and the company was pleasant. I love spending time with them!
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| I forgot to mention that Josh got glasses! I think he looks so handsome! |
I went out to dinner with my domino friends on Monday night the 10th to celebrate Val's birthday. Her birthday was actually in January, along with Rosalba's--and we'd planned on going to Rosalba's restaurant choice for dinner and Val's restaurant choice for dessert the previous month, but we never made it to Val's place, so we went out again in February to go to her birthday food destination! We ate at the Sandpiper Restaurant, which was a first for me. Val got the giant mud pie--it was massive! She was so excited when they brought it, too, which was so fun! She shared it with everyone, but I'm not a fan of chocolate-flavored cake (for as much as I love chocolate, I don't like chocolate-flavored stuff), so I got the crème brulee instead (and was NOT disappointed). I sure love this group of ladies and I was so glad we got to spend the evening together!
Josh got to drive the Salmon school ski bus up to Lost Trail on the 13th, which meant he got to ski all day "for work". He had a great time, and the weather was beautiful!
Micah ran at the Simplot Games in Pocatello on the evening of the 13th for the long-distance preliminaries. He only ran in the 1600m this time. I drove down after to school, and thankfully got there in time to watch him as well as 2 of his teammates run. It was a LOT busier this time around, but thankfully the meet was run very efficiently, which I really appreciated! Micah was in the 10th heat of 19 heats for this race, and there were about 16 runners in each heat. Only the top 36 runners of about 300 runners total make it in the finals race on Saturday. Micah's goal was to run it in 4:50 and be in the top 4 of his heat. He did SO awesome! It was exciting to watch him! His time was 4:53, and he was 2nd in his heat! He felt great about his race, and I was so proud of him! This was his last indoor track meet of the season; he'd worked hard for months and it showed. The teammates went out to eat afterwards at Costa Vida, then I took Micah to get a few groceries and dropped him off at Josh's sister Tiffany's house where he spent the night (we are so grateful to her for letting him stay there--all the hotel rooms in the town were booked!) Micah didn't make it in the finals--the cutoff time was 4:39 to be with the top 36 runners, but teammate Andy did, which we were happy about since he's a senior.
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| He had a much better start this time--he started out fast, and kept a fast pace! |
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| On every lap, he passed more runners |
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With 2 laps to go, he was in second place,
and was leading this pack!
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On the final lap, he got within just a few yards
of the leader!
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He was catching up quickly on this final corner, but then the leader took off as
well, and Micah finished 2nd in the heat, fulfilling one of his goals for this race!
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I love Valentine's Day! My class Valentine's party went really well. I'd re-used old ice cream buckets, cutting out a rectangular hole in the lid to use as a slot, and they decorated them for their Valentines containers. We passed out the valentine's that morning, and then for the party, they opened them up (I limited them to only eat 2 at the time), we ate party snacks that parents brought, played Valentine's Bingo, and played "Cupid's Arrow" (a nerf dart-shooting game into boxes that had heart shapes cut out). Both teams did so well during the competitive game: they each scored 3 points; in fact, it was the final shot which tied it up, which made it so exciting for everyone! We all had a lot of fun!
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My classroom theme is "Rise Up", and I use a lot of hot air
balloon decorations, so when I came up with this idea using
fruit roll-ups, I thought I was so clever!
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It's not a great picture, but it's the only one I took.
It was right after we got back to the room from the hot tub.
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The next morning, Josh and I drove down to pick up Micah from Holt Arena. Two of his teammates (Johnny and Andy) were running in the finals at the Simplot Games, but since Micah wasn't, and we were just 40 minutes away, we decided we could go get him and bring him back to Salmon so that he didn't get home super late that night. It worked out really well, because the Girl's Choice dance was that evening, and Micah had been asked by Madeline Sapp, and since he came home with us, he was able to go to the dance with her.
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| She asked him at school on the 12th with this creative poster |
Micah and Madeline went with a group to the movies and then to the dance, and he had a good time. She's a really nice girl and they've been on a few dates together. The dance had a 20's theme. Jonah decided at the last minute that he might go to the dance with some friends, too, but ultimately he and his friends hung out at people's houses instead of going to the dance.
President's Day was a lazy, stay-home kind of day. We had originally thought about going to Hamilton to look at travel trailers (since we sold ours last fall), but didn't really feel like it anymore. The twins had originally planned to go skiing at Lost Trail, but Micah had play practice at 4, and they didn't want to cut it so short in order for him to make it back, so they didn't go either. However, since I thought everyone would be gone, I made plans for Kanyon to go play at his friend Aidan Oliverson's house, so he's the only one who wasn't home! Josh and I enjoyed being lazy on our new brown couch: he read and I blogged and watched TV, and the sun was shining through the window and it felt glorious! Then I got a Marco Polo from my friend Jen, and she was stuck in the snow on her way to a client's house. We found out it was only a mile from our house, so Josh and I took off in the truck to get her suburban pulled out. It took a couple of tries, but we got it!
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| Even our animals liked the laid-back kind of day! |
I felt like winter lasted FOREVER this year!!! At the beginning of February, the snow wouldn't stop falling, but at the end of the month, the freezing temperatures arrived day after day and I felt like it would never end! When I left Salmon to head back to school on the 18th, it was -23 degrees going over Gilmore! Thankfully, it wasn't that cold in Mud Lake, but I hated seeing it get so low! Also, on the drive that morning, I kept staring at a bright star right next to the crescent moon. The moon itself looked cool, because although it was just the crescent that was illuminated, you could actually see the rest of the moon's circle shadow--it was a dark gray against the black sky. But the bright star was right next to the gray shadow part of the moon, and it was such an unusual sight that I couldn't stop staring at it. I later discovered that the 'star' was actually Mars, and it had eclipsed behind the moon. It's called "lunar occultation", when the earth, moon, and a planet align. Unfortunately, I didn't see it before it went behind the moon, but I started watching it after it reappeared on the other side, and then continued to slowly inch away from the moon. What a cool, unexpected experience (that I sadly have no pictures of).
I went out with my group of "lunch ladies" (we eat together at school almost every day) after school on the 25th (we like to go monthly after pay day!). We stopped at Roberts to pick up two of the gals, and saw there'd been a recent wreck where a semi had been run into by a train, and then dragged a half mile until the train stopped! Pretty scary, but thankfully the driver was okay.
On the 26th, I got to go with the West J Academic team to their scholastic meet in Arco as a reader. I enjoy reading for these competitions! I've helped with them for the past 2 years as a timer, but this was the first year I was a reader. Mrs. Parker was a reader, too, and we sat by each other on the bus ride. Our team got 2nd place at the competition, which was great! On the way home, we stopped to eat at Pickle's Place. I'd never been there before, but my Idaho Burger was delicious! On the bus ride back, we played the electronic game "Catch Phrase", and I was totally in my element! I love playing games! And these kids were so fun to play with, too! It was such a fun ride!
Josh went to Boise for work meetings from the 24th-26th. He was even there after Ryan and Heidi's baby was born, and got to visit them in the hospital, which was so incredible! He was there when Ayla and Jane came to see baby Reuben for the first time, and watching her reactions to her new baby brother were priceless and so memorable for him. On the way home, he stopped for a quick soak at the Royal Gorge springs and sent me a message saying he missed me. I was in the middle of the scholastic competition--just an hour and a half away from him, so I felt like we weren't too far apart, but I loved that he thought of me!
The Salmon Music Department's Swing Night was at the Salmon school the following evening on the 28th. I took the afternoon off work. Josh drove down to Mud Lake with his mom (who was driving to the Weigh Station to pick up Tiffany to go to Great Falls together since Grandpa Parsons was really sick), and then I drove him to Idaho Falls. He picked up the bus that had been delivered the previous week to get worked on, and we drove back to Salmon in separate vehicles. When I got home in Salmon, I cooked and seasoned 5 pounds of meat for the Swing Night (it was also a fundraiser with a taco dinner), in addition to buying 40 tortillas for the event. Josh and I sat by the Hobbs' and Oswald's, ate dinner, and danced a few numbers. Jonah played in the band for the Swing Night, and they played a lot of Jazz music. They sounded amazing! The students also got to dance after some Swing instruction while some pre-recorded music played and soloists sang, and I was able to capture some pictures of both boys dancing, which made my heart so proud! It was a fun night! However, I was SO exhausted, so Josh and I left a little early to come home and go to bed, and the twins got home SUPER late because they stayed afterward to help clean up (they're such good boys!).
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| Micah and Madeline |
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Jonah had been dancing with Beth, but I couldn't get
a good picture from where I was. By the time I'd
made it over to them, her dad had stepped in to show
Jonah some of the twirling dance moves in Swing.
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It's Leap Year, so February had 29 days this month! On the 29th, Josh and I drove to Hamilton to look at some travel trailers, but we didn't commit to getting any. We ate at Pizza Hut, did some grocery shopping (where I saw Cat in the Hat!!), and I slept in the car as Josh drove there and back. I'd had a stressful week getting prepared for Dr. Seuss' birthday/Read Across America week. Although the event wasn't until the upcoming week, I was the chairman for the event and had to do a LOT of prep work, and I'd had a lack of sleep all week as a result of the stress and anxiety of trying to make sure everything got done and was ready! So, this ended up being a nice day for me: I got to get away from everything with my husband, see the Cat in the Hat in person (I was SO happy!), and sleep a LOT to catch up on what I'd missed all week!
