Snow Days

I think by this point everyone in the country knows we had a major blizzard here in the Black Hills, starting on Wednesday and finally ending during the night Thursday night. Everyone from Minnesota has been calling saying "we saw the Black Hills on the news!" Thursday was so bad that Mark's bank even closed - which NEVER happens. So we all lounged around in our PJs all day, familiarizing ourselves with the new Wii - whew, is THAT addicting. It was a nice, relaxing day, but by this morning (Friday), we were ready to GET OUT. Here's a little tidbit about our lovely hometown, however: they don't use plows here. Or any other kind of snow removal device for that matter. The city evidently just expects us all to sit around in our houses until the snow MELTS. Cost-effective, don't you think? Luckily we have a very large vehicle with 4-wheel drive, so Mark was able to go to work today and we were able to get out and run some errands (school was cancelled both yesterday and today). I couldn't stay in the house another minute! However, our street was never plowed. In fact, some main thoroughfares in town were never even plowed. It's just a mess. I think I'm going to start withholding our property taxes until we get some service around here!!!! :)

Jack and Noah were WAY excited to get outside in the snow - it about drove them nuts that I made them wait until the 70-mph winds ceased (no joke).

Here's the massive snowman they built with Dad . . . .

While we were out for lunch today, Jack lost yet another tooth (the bottom left hole - he's now missing a total of five) . . . .

. . . . which reminded us of all the crazy times this child has lost his teeth! The first one he ever lost he swallowed while eating a pretzel at the pool; another he lost on the night before Easter, so the Tooth Fairy AND the Easter Bunny came that night; he lost another at the Grand Canyon; and another just minutes before my brother's wedding. Too funny. I don't know how the poor kid manages to eat. His top ones are finally coming through, thank heavens.

A nice side effect of this storm was that one of Mark's best buddies from CO was traveling through town on Wednesday night on his way to MN and ended up getting stuck at a local hotel on the interstate. He literally couldn't even make it through town to our house until today, and is now staying the night with us - his third night in town, which is 3 more than he planned on spending here! The interstate finally opened again a couple hours ago, so he'll be on his merry way in the a.m. We really enjoyed seeing him for a while -

Here they are this evening enjoying the balmy weather (ha) -