Weekly Wrap Up - More Christmas Fun

Our town is just a fun place to live, with so many family events all throughout the year.  This past weekend was one of those fun events, where the downtown became "Christmas Town".  It was like a little Hallmark movie, with everything decorated for Christmas, shops opened late, fun treats in some of the store, carolers, and a tree lighting ceremony.  The caroling and tree lighting were led by "Father Christmas" (far right below).   Accompanying him on the far left is "Father Time", a few reindeer and "Mother Time and Mother Christmas" as well.

The husbands car died at work on Saturday, which created some scheduling issues for Sunday, especially with rumors of a winter storm in the works.  We continued to watch varying weather reports, and went to bed with the forecast of less than 1-inch of snow starting sometime Sunday.

Sunday morning I dropped the husband off at work at 4:30am, and returned home to try to get another hour of sleep.   Our early church service started at 8:30am, we still weren't supposed to get any snow, so the girls and I headed out.  As we started to walk across the church parking lot the slightest little snowflakes began to fall.  Midway through our praise & worship, I looked out the main door and saw nothing but a blur of white.   Service usually runs to 10:15+/-, so when the pastor announced at 9:50 that we were dismissed, I knew the snow was getting heavy.   The low 20 temperatures and falling snow caused the church driveway (it's a sharp/steep V shape) to turn into a sheet of ice.  Cars were lined up waiting to go one at a time down the steep decline and try to make it up the other side.  We watched several vehicles spin and slide back down, and we saw some that went right on up.

Our van is front wheel drive, and we have 4 brand new tires on it, so I thought we were in good shape.  Going down the hill was fine, coming up the other side we got about 3/4 of the way up when the back in lost traction and we slid sideways/backwards back to the bottom of the hill.  The girls were terrified.    On our second attempt we got within 10 feet of the main road and again the back lost traction and we went sideways, but didn't slide back down this time.  We were close enough to the top that one of the guys from church was able to hook chains to us and use his truck to pull us up on the main road.   The drive home was slow and slick, but thankfully it was not as steep anywhere.   The drive from home to my husbands work was a white-knuckle drive, but we made it find both ways.   We ended up with over 8 inches of snow, and some places in our county got 12-15.     It is pretty though.

Monday was a snow day for local schools.  We knocked out a full day of work by lunch time and then the girls still got to go sledding all afternoon.  I spent the day cleaning house and doing laundry.  Late afternoon I made the trek by foot to the repair shop to pick up the husbands car.   While sledding, the girls met a new family who live on the street behind us, and came home with a new babysitting gig.

Tuesday we awoke to single digit temperatures, the snow isn't going away anytime soon.   PSAT scores came out and oddly enough, Olivia scored better in math and science (her two weakest subjects) than she did in language arts and history (her two favorite).  I was really excited to see her scores.  The girls knocked out their schoolwork pretty early, and even worked ahead some.  Lindsey finally finished making all of her Christmas gifts.  The late afternoon brought dressed rehearsal for the Mummer's Play.

Wednesday was pretty standard.  Lessons were done by early afternoon.  Olivia spent some time looking over the PSAT result and developing a plan to prepare for the SAT.  The last Mummer's Play practice was held in late afternoon, then it was home for a super fast dinner (crockpots are our friend) and then off to church.

Thursday morning I started making Christmas candy.  Fudge and peanut butter balls were on the menu.  The girls took a break from school work to help me roll out the peanut butter balls, then it was back to the books.  This was the first night of lantern tours, so I took the girls to Chick-fil-a for an early dinner then dropped them off to get in costume around 4.   Then it was back across town to pick up the husband and my brother...the folks at Chick-fil-a looked at me funny when we came back in (for the record, I didn't eat when I took the girls to eat).   After dinner, we headed over to the museum for our lantern tour.  

The tours are WONDERFUL.  You walk, by lantern light through England, Ireland and Germany; stopping at each house to watch a skit with holiday traditions from that time frame.  The Mummer's Play in Ireland was a scream, and you could see how much fun Olivia, Lindsey and the others were having.    From Germany we walked up to the area where horse drawn carriages were waiting for us.  The sky was clear and you could see the stars and moon twinkling in the sky, see the glistening snow over the land, and listen to the jingle bells on the horses.  This is my FAVORITE part.   Once we arrive at the "new world" we disembarked and went to the houses there for more skits.  Then it was back to the carriages and the beautiful ride back to the visitors center where hot cider, cookies and live music awaited us.   The whole thing takes about 2 hours, and it was cold enough to feel like Christmas, but not so cold that you were in misery.  I didn't take photos, because I wanted to just enjoy the whole experience without looking through a camera.

Friday morning Lindsey headed back for her 8-hour shift at the museum.   Olivia gets dropped off again around 4 and she'll take Lindsey her dinner as they prepare for night 2 of the tours.   Once we drop them off, Tom and I will be heading to a Christmas party.   Crazy heavy rain is supposed to move in for the weekend, threatening more flooding in our area as the rain falls, and the lingering snow melts.

This week in art, Olivia had two assignments.  One was to paint a picture of an experience that impacted her.  She painted her rendition of the National D-Day Memorial.  Her second assignment was go do something in "modern art" style....and of course she went with an animal, but it's really cool.

That's about all for our week.   How has your week been?