Snow, then warming

We got five inches of all sorts of wintry stuff yesterday. It was not happy shoveling, but we could make snowballs from it. You might be able to see Karen's hand above the snowpile my the mailbox. This has been one of Peoria's snowiest years, but not yet as much as 2010-2011.  By the way, I thought it was interesting looking back and comparing to my February 17, 2010, blog entry.  Things are warming up now: we got to the upper 40s today, melting some of the snow and making puddles on campus.  I saw a moth outside this evening.  

More wintry pix

More snow, more cold.  A 30" water main broke in Peoria this week, causing a widespread boil order, including on the BU campus. Other water lines have been breaking, including one at a local Kmart.  There are lots of potholes on some streets. The pile of shoveled snow by the mailbox is about five feet tall. I went snowshoeing in Lauterbach Park for an hour this morning.  The fluffy snow was usually about 12 inches deep, sometimes more.  It did not provide a lot of float for the snowshoes, but I had fun and went about 0.9 miles through the woods and creekbeds. The icicles we have been seeing look kind of cool.  Kris solved a Rubik's cube (something I have never done - I am very impressed) with careful study of internet tutorials

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Bosma/Riley Wedding

Yesterday was the wedding of Lidia Bosma (who we have known since she was about five years old) to Sam Riley (who she has known for about the same length of time).  Katie was a lantern girl, Kris was a bridal assistant, Karen coordinated Katie and helped with other activities, and I did informal photography/videography.  We had fun at the rehearsal and wedding. On Saturday morning Katie had her first reconciliation ceremony (postponed from last weekend) and we had the usual choir/Sunday school events.  Oh yeah, and some of us have been dealing with colds.  Busy, but good, weekend.

Snow Day III

Yesterday afternoon though this morning we had another snow event that caused many of the local schools, including Bradley, to shut down.  My 7:30-9 am exam scheduled for this morning will now be held on Friday.  I went back to bed after getting the news and slept in a little, and spent the day on minor home improvements and working on a presentation for later this month.  One of the things we did was take down all of the winter decorations.  We often do not take them down until mid-March, but we are a bit fed up with winter.  On the other hand, if we had a bit more snow I could dig out the snowshoes.  I'm glad our neighbor a couple doors up saw us shoveling the six inches of snow and came over with his snowblower to make short work of it. My understanding is that the roads are more poorly plowed in the city of Peoria than our street.  Our firewood supply is dwindling, but since we only use the wood stove occasionally I think we will be fine this winter. Karen made some of the fresh snow into ice cream tonight.

Snow Day II and Groundhog Day Weekend

On Monday, the day after I returned from Dallas, Bradley University and other schools in the area closed due to winter weather, more due to the cold and wind than anything else.  I needed to catch up on my sleep anyway.  Friday and Saturday, we got another seven inches of snow, so the ground is white again.  Yesterday, Karen and Kris went on a trip to Chicago to see Phantom of the Opera.  They had fun. Katie and I mostly hung out at home (watching a deer in the woods was one of the high points), but we had a nice dinner at a Chinese restaurant with friends. Today was Groundhog Day.  Everybody is convinced we will have six more weeks of winter.  I looked behind our shed this afternoon, under which we have occasionally had a groundhog reside. In the fresh snow, I have seen tracks of an animal that twice ventured out a little ways and then went back in. Not sure if these are groundhog tracks, but the animal did not seem to want to venture out much.  I also included a picture of Kris practicing guitar at church this morning.  Tonight the Seattle Seahawks beat the Denver Broncos in the Super Bowl.