1.16.2007

ANOTHER snow day


ugh. we haven't been to school in a week. i'm doubtful for tomorrow at least starting on time, if we have school at all. it's getting pretty frustrating to say the very least. at least owen's being a good sport about all of this. he was supposed to have his 15 month check-up today, but they called to cancel and his appointment is now on monday morning, which means i'll have to take part of the day off from work. who knows if i'll even get a sub for half a day.


as for days to make up, our count is at either 5 or 6, depending on whether or not our district takes advantage of the new rule in effect here in washington allowing districts to not make up days missed when the governor has declared a disaster or state of emergency, like she did during our windstorm in december.


ah, well. off to get cat food.

1.12.2007

Today is June 22 - No, Really it is!

Yes, I know it is actually January 12 (and Owen is 15 months and has as many teeth - the top left eye tooth came through last night) but we are home for yet another snow day. This brings our grand total to 5 bad weather days on the year, although we may only have to make up 4 of them because one was during an official "state of emergency" and somehow there is a rule that those days don't have to be made up. So I guess today could be only June 21, not June 22, but we will have to see. The reason I'm calling today as 6/22 is because that is now the last day of school thanks to being off today. Owen and I went out and played in the snow a little bit today. He fell asleep pretty soon after we got inside and hasnt' had lunch yet. We'll take care of that once he wakes up in an hour or so.

1.11.2007

snow days

yesterday was just rediculous. they called a snow day for, get this, 1" of snow. it was all melted by yesterday afternoon, just in time for another front to come through. this front dumped about 4" on us, which in tacoma is a reasonable amount to cancel school for. this, however means that instead of getting out on june 15 as was scheduled, we are now getting out on june 21 at the very earliest. we lost a day in december for snow, then another day later in december for wind and power outages, then yesterday and today for snow. i honestly think that we could have had a late start (2 hour delay for kids with staff getting to school as close to normal time as is safely possible) and been fine. i guess our new superintendent (from cali) felt that there were dangerous road conditions yesterday morning and so he cancelled school. we got our phone call from him (via a mass calling system, which is actually quite nice) yesterday morning at 6:00.

we went out for dinner and to shop a little bit last night. on our way home, we were coming north on the interstate (for a whole three exits, including the ones we got on and off at), and drove right into the front. it was pretty interesting, actually. we got on at 72nd, by the time we got ot 56th we could see the front ahead of us, by 48th (just an overpass, no exit there) we were getting pelted with little bits of ice, and by the time we got off at 38th, the ground was completely white and people were skidding and sliding around if they were going too fast. when we turned onto the next major street by our home, the people in front of us didn't even have their foot on the gas pedal. that was a bit silly, in my opinion. 15-20 mph was safe, 3 mph was overkill. we got home and within about 45 minutes, my car was covered in about 1" of snow. i figured at that point that we likely weren't having school today, and we got the call at 9:00 p.m. telling us that school today was cancelled. since tacoma doesn't have extra days built into the school year to deal with snow days, we have to make up any days missed for inclimate weather at the end. we've already added nearly an entire week. wonder how many more days we'll have to make up. i wonder if we'll still be in school in july... even though we could have slept in today, someone didn't realize that and was up an hour earlier than usual. said person is now down for a nap and will have lunch mid-afternoon when he wakes up.

owen has new foods on his menu: scrambled eggs, hamburgers (with and without cheese), and quesadillas. it certainly makes going out much easier when we can order off of the menu for him. he has also learned to drink from a straw which, again, makes things easier.

owen also has several new words within the last couple of weeks: yeah, book, read, and door. add those to mama, dada, mommy, kitty cat, more, and please and our little man has a healthy vocabulary. :-) granted he doesn't use many of these words yet on a regular basis, and has only said book, read, and door once each, but they are still words in his vocabulary!

i can't believe that our little man turns 15 months old tomorrow! the time has really flown. he's chattering up a storm these days. i wouldn't be surprized if he opens up with several new words in the next few weeks. his favorite thing to do these days is climb on the coffee table and on the couch. i've ended up moving a small cabinet back closer to the side window in our living room (it was pushed up so the front edge was even with the front of the couch) so that owen won't go behind it.