Current Events

The apologies for not blogging are getting old, so I will offer none.

I will offer instead a summary of our January activities, thus far:

• I am back at work, and have been since Jan. 2. But Jon has been home, and has only slowly been transitioning the kids back to daycare so he can better prepare for classes. But they've had a lot of home time. 
• We're still enjoying our Christmas presents!

Miles and Adele are a hot musical duo.

Aaand switch instruments!

One of Grandma & Grandpa G's gifts is a big hit at mealtimes!

• The weather has been nuts; all over the place. Mostly, it's been warm and last weekend, freakishly so. Temperatures last Saturday and Sunday were in the 70s. 
• This seems profoundly unnatural to me, and I had angst, but we decided to make the best of things and pretend were were taking a vacation in Florida, California, or similar. We went to the zoo!

I could feel my sinuses clearing.

I enjoyed the weather despite myself.

I'm pretty sure this guy was digging it too.

Adele got to break in her spring hat.

Bo the Wolverine was unusually mellow.

Adele's sense of humor is maturing. We both thought our huge heads in this mirror were hilarious.

Toddler Adele. I can't believe it.

Here she is attempting to dive into this exhibit...

...containing a Snow Leopard. "Cat cat cat cat!!!"

It clouded over later on and sprinkled. Still in the 70s, though.

In the discovery center, Adele got to be a bee. She buzzes admirably.

I love the owls circling overhead.

Miles enjoyed emulating a bee whilst simultaneously learning what kinds of animals produce what kinds of poop. He was thrilled.

• From soaring in the 70s, the temps plunged yesterday into the mid 30s, and as they continued to drop, a determined rain became a pummeling snow.

We got about 8 inches in total, last night.

• Miles has been bemoaning the lack of winter since we returned from NY. He's been praying that God would send snow, and for good measure, asking Blacksburg when we leave the house, "SNOW BLACKSBURG, SNOW!" 
• Yesterday I got to leave work at 2:15 because of the driving conditions, and I had the pleasure of showing him that his prayers had been favorably answered. "Oh!" he said, "It snowed! And we wanted it to snow!" He feels powerful.

We took an outing of about 2 hours' duration yesterday.

Mary pondering the snow in her heart.

Cemeteries in snow just appeal to me.

Our walk yesterday included snowball throwing, silent snow listening (one of my favorite seasonable activities), sledding, knocking snow off trees, catching snowflakes on our tongues and making a short snowman, christened Frosty Junior. We had to get it all in; who knows if we'll get another snow this season?

Inside, Adele was napping, then practicing signing "snow" and making music for Papa to cook by.

She is an extremely happy child these days. She's sleeping a wee bit better, too. The Cough is almost gone.

Classes start next week. I have a full, varied, and exciting schedule, thanks to our students, with everything from Race, Class and Gender to a business class to Control Engineering (totally inscrutable). I also get to take a class for myself, this semester: Class & Conflict in Shakespeare. I'll finally have to read King Lear, among others. I'm experiencing some trepidation over this semester. and probably I'll be doing more working and less blogging than usual. But I am confident. I'm a seasoned warrior of life, after all.

And look what I get to come home to!