Final Exam

Tonight mom had the final Cake Decorating Class (of Course 3). She had worked all week making the yellow roses that she needed for class tonight. We think she did a great job.


The cake really looks good, can't wait to have some.

Snow Totals

Saw this on one of the local tv station's website and thought we'd share it with everyone.

ASHTABULA COUNTY
ASHTABULA -- 21 inches
PIERPONT -- 20 inches
ASHTABULA -- 19 inches
SAYBROOK -- 18 inches
CONNEAUT I-90 -- 17 inches
GENEVA -- 17 inches
DORSETT -- 10 inches
HARTSGROVE -- 10 inches

CUYAHOGA COUNTY
LYNDHURST -- 12 inches
PEPPER PIKE -- 12 inches
GARFIELD HTS -- 10 inches
CLEVELAND -- 9 inches
EUCLID -- 9 inches
BROADVIEW HTS -- 8 inches
CLEVELAND HTS. -- 8 inches
CLE AIRPORT -- 5 inches

GEAUGA COUNTY
CHARDON -- 19 inches
CHARDON -- 19 inches
THOMPSON -- 19 inches
CHARDON -- 14 inches
RUSSEL TWP -- 12 inches
BURTON -- 10 inches

HURON COUNTY
NORWALK -- 3 inches

LAKE COUNTY
MADISON TOWNSHIP -- 24 inches
PERRY TOWNSHIP -- 15 inches
MADISON -- 13 inches
PAINESVILLE -- 13 inches
MENTOR -- 12 inches

LORAIN COUNTY
OBERLIN -- 5 inches

MEDINA COUNTY
BRUNSWICK -- 6 inches
MEDINA -- 3 inches

PORTAGE COUNTY
HIRAM RAPIDS -- 13 inches
HIRAM -- 9 inches
AURORA -- 8 inches
RAVENNA -- 7 inches

RICHLAND COUNTY
MANSFLD ARPT -- 2 inches

STARK COUNTY
ALLIANCE -- 3 inches

SUMMIT COUNTY
TWINSBURG -- 10 inches
RICHFIELD -- 9 inches
GREEN -- 3 inches
TALLMADGE -- 3 inches
CAK AIRPORT -- 2 inches

TRUMBULL COUNTY
YNG AIRPORT -- 5 inches

WAYNE COUNTY
DALTON -- 3 inches
WOOSTER -- 2 inches

The closest city to us that is listed for the totals is Lyndhurst, which is about a mile west of us. Officially it's listed as 12 inches, but dad thinks that we have a little more than that. Grandma and papa live in North Royalton, and Broadview Hts is the next city over from them. Gramma lives in Strongville, which is between Cleveland and Brunswick.

Calm before the storm

Last night when dad got home he went out and used the snow blower to clean off the driveway. it had snowed another 8 or so inches during the day, and you couldn't even see where our driveway was. It was to cold for us to be outside, so dad snapped a few photo's so we could load those here.

This is what the deck looked like. The top of the deck is about 18 inches off the ground, and the snow is almost level with it now.

Somewhere under all that snow is Jacob's tractor, I think it'll be spring before he gets to see it again.

Dad always makes a path for the mailman to walk through.

This is what it looked like this morning, they were calling for up to 10 more inches, but we missed the big storm and only got a couple inches overnight.

Lots of fresh snow on the deck.

The next couple days are supposed to be bitterly cold, so I don't think we'll be out playing in the back for awhile.

Play Time

It was cold outside, but we wanted to go out an play in the snow. Mom got Jenna and I all bundled up and ready to go.

Forecast.... Yep more snow

Looking at the hour by hour forecast for today, I'm thinking we're gonna get a couple more inches of snow. The weatherman was saying 4-6 inches likely and more in the snow belt, and we live in the snow belt. We're definitely gonna play outside when we get home later today.

Oh sNOw, Not again

Yep, it's true, for the third day in a row we got snow. Last night dad used the snow blower and cleaned the 3 or 4 inches of snow off the driveway before mom left for cake class. This morning when we woke up there was another 3 or 4 inches of new snow on the ground, and it was still snowing hard. Because of the weather, dad decided to make it a car pool day and we all loaded up in the van and he drove to work. The roads on the east side in the Snowbelt were pretty bad and it was hard to see where you were going because of how hard it was snowing. We'll be spending the day at gramma's apartment, which means we'll get dad after he's done at work and let him drive us back home. Maybe we'll get to play outside before it gets too dark.

Easy Does It

I got to use my Easy Bake Oven for the first time since receiving it from Santa in December. We all gathered around the kitchen table and after dad got us a light bulb, we started to bake.

Movin' On Up

I'm moving up alright, right to the top, the top bunk that is. After talking about it with mom and dad, we decided that I was big enough to start sleeping on the top bunk of my bunk beds. It took most of the day to clean off all the stuff that had piled up on the bed. But in the end, it was all ready for me at bedtime.

Relaxation

Tonight the whole family decided to sit around and relax. High School Musical was on and we all love it (dad said not so much, but he did stay for awhile and keep us company.

Mom was attacked earlier by the sticker monster.

Dad and Jacob were on the other couch under Jacob's Thomas the Tank Engine blanket.

We're the Girls

Well, I spent most of the day with Mom yesterday and again today. For Christmas I got 2 tickets to see Disney On Ice Princess Wishes, so I asked Mom along. Dad dropped us girls off right in front of The "Q". I was dressed in my princess dress, so I fit right in. There were a lot of other girls there dressed in their princess stuff, but I looked the best (mommy told me so, and if mommy says it, then it's gotta be the truth right ?)

I had such a good time there with Mom. All of my favorite characters from Disney were there. The show lasted over 2 hours, and I loved every bit of it. I can't wait for it to come back to town.

We called the chauffeur and he came over and picked up us.

Oh, and to the Guys (daddy and Jacob), everybody knows that Girlz Rule ! ! ! ! !

We're the Guy's Part 2

Yesterday Dad and I spent most of the day together doing guy stuff, you know, working around the house on various fix-it projects, sitting around playing games on the Xbox, stuff like that. Today Mom was headed downtown to the Quicken Loans Arena with Jenna to see Dinsey's Princess Wishes On Ice. Dad said santa brought Jenna the tickets, but I think we know who really got them. I'll let Jenna Blog about her experience there, but Dad and I headed over to the Children's Museum of Cleveland .

It was a really cool place. They had a huge room filled with sand that the kids could play in. I played there a lot, and got sand in places I didn't know sand could get into.

Another cool area was the "Town" which had different building like a store, or a bank, or a hospital or a firestation. In each building you could do stuff. Both Dad and I worked on the ATM machine in the bank, but neither of us could get it to spit out any real money.

One of my most favorite area's was downstairs. There you could learn all about dams and locks and water flow. They even had these cool looking rain coats that you could use so you wouldn't get all wet.

Here I was building a dam to divert the water flow.

Thanks Dad from beinging me here, it was cool.

We're the Guy's

Today Jenna had another appointment at the Cleveland Clinic. More tests to see if she would be able to take Stimate when she had a bleeding incident opposed to the injection that the doctor said may be needed. It was going to be a full morning of tests, so Dad and I drove them downtown to the doctor's office and dropped them off, we then headed home. I sat around and played Xbox while dad did some more work on the kitchen. After awhile dad came in and we both played Curious George on Xbox, he's a little better than me, but he's also 33 years older than me and has a little more experience playing video games. Whenever I would get stuck at a certain part, I would hand Dad the controller and he'd get me though it. A couple times I had to force him to give me back the controller, who would have known that he would like Curious George so much.

Hired an Electrician

So after all the trouble Dad had with the wires that powered the GFI outlets and the mircowave, he decided to seek professional help. I completed the job pretty quickly and came in under budget, I think I offered to work for 5 bucks, but took some cookies instead.

Disaster Averted

Well, it's been about a week or two since dad installed the microwave about the stove. Yesterday while mom was making dinner, it stopped working. Dad thought there was too much heat from the stove and it reset the GFI, but when he got home a few minutes later he checked the GFI and it wasn't tripped. He ran an extension cord from another outlet to the microwave and it worked, so he left the fan running for awhile, well it turns out running the fan was a good thing.
As you can see in the photo, the wires burned and actually caught fire, but with the help of the fan that was running, probably kept it from burning down the house. You can see the smoke pulled towards the vent. Pretty scary. Dad spent the evening tonight removing the burned wires and getting ready to rewire the outlets. He pulled all the wires down to the outlets behind the stove and will wire it all with new GFI outlets and eliminate the use of wire nuts that were ganged together in the lower 2 outlets.

Snow, oh yeah Baby

Last night dad told us he had a surprise for us, since we like surprises so much, we played along. He turned off the lights in the living room and Jenna and I waited on the couch like he said. Once he opened the curtains to the front yard I could hardly believe what I saw, it was snow, and it was coming down hard.

This is what the back decked looked like about an hour after it started snowing.

While Mom was helping Jenna brush her teeth, Dad and I snuck over and opened the window so we could catch a couple of snow flakes.