Tuesday, December 18, 2007

ice


Well, we had some ice here. It started last Thursday with a minor storm that swept through, causing school in Palmyra (and many other districts) to be canceled. I honestly didn't mind lounging on the couch all day. It got icy for quite a while in the middle of the day, but had calmed down by Thursday evening. Apparently that was just the teaser storm, as the real one hit Saturday evening into Sunday morning. It wasn't nearly as severe as what Christy and the boys went through in Oklahoma, but it did make life in central PA somewhat interesting. Church was canceled on Sunday, which gave us some time to survey the damage. Luckily, our neighborhood did not suffer from the loss of electricity that plagued much of Harrisburg, Hershey and Lebanon, including poor Dad, Chrysta and the boys. So, we had power, but feared that the branches that were basically hanging from the electrical line into our house would put that luxury in jeopardy. So Mike, ever the handy man, decided to make his own extensions for his clippers so he could climb up on the ladder and take some of the bigger branches down. See pictures above. It worked swimmingly. That is, until Mike saw the other, bigger branches that were higher up on the wire, about 15'-20' above our heads. He contemplated adding more boards to his clippers, but we figured that just wouldn't work. So he ventured out to Home Depot and made a good investment in telescopic clippers. That did the job just fine, and our wire is still free from hanging branches. Our neighbors had some pretty big trees in their side yard that we are lucky didn't come crashing into our house. So, other than a night of restless sleep and a Sunday of icy yard work, we remained mostly unharmed. Poor Dad can't say the same thing. Apparently the nice big tree in the front yard by the mailbox was spontaneously bursting into flames as a result of the electrical wire that was down and dangling in its branches. Long story short, Chrysta, Hudson and Cannon came to stay with us from Sunday until just earlier this evening (Tuesday) since the power was out at Dad's, and the house was getting cold. Dad toughed it out in Lebanon, keeping a fire going to stop the pipes from bursting, should the temperature drop that low. Luckily for me, I didn't have school on Monday (I'm thinking that I won't consider this "lucky" once President's Day comes and I'm in school, but for now I'll consider it lucky) so we ventured out for a Pizza lunch where Cannon was picking up Babes with his good looks (bald is totally in). Then we spent some time at Target before heading home. I had to get myself ready for my big date with Mike to celebrate our two year anniversary. We went to our favorite restaurant, Cantone's, and had a great time celebrating:)

Monday, December 10, 2007













The first few pictures are from puppet show day at school. The kids put on puppet shows to teach the class about the Crusades. They did a nice job. The rest are of our tree, which we got this weekend, some of our favorite ornaments, and our stockings.