BBQ

Alex loves BBQ, especially BBQ restaurants with pigs.

More Snow!

Yes, winter came to North Carolina this year. We recently enjoyed our second snow storm. It brought eight plus inches of snow and an inch of ice. That shut things down in town for four days, to a region that rarely sees snow.  Even Fort Bragg was completely shut down for two days.

Here is our rate sight...a palm tree in the snow. I tried to document the snow as they day went in because we never knew how much we would really get. This was is the morning, around 9 AM.

By lunch...

Palm tree just after lunch

Madison took to a fort city.

Small snowman

The city continued to grow as the snow did. 

By mid afternoon

Dinnertime

The snow was not done yet, and you can see the accumulation on the table.

The worst part about this storm was Edward was trying to drive home from Virginia in it for the weekend. The first day of the storm was snow, but we got all the ice the second day, which was Wesnesday. Edward's classes were cancelled due to the storm, so he was trying to drive home in the ice. It took him five hours when it normally takes three. Thanksl goodness for All Wheel Drive! I went out that night and shoveled some tire tread marks for him. The roads and driveway were a sheet of glass with all that snow and the ice on top.  The snow and ice were extremely heavy. As he drove in, it was eerily quiet due to no one on the roads. I could hear him plowing his way down the subdivision. The noise was so loud die to all the ice. We are bye glad he made it home for a few days.

The gnome was rescued!

Great sight on Thursday morning! There are only 17 plows in our whole large county, and we loves seeing this come through the subdivision. They honked and waved to us too.

Crunching in the ice

Chunks of snow and ice

I was very glad to have help shoveling the driveway during this snowstorm :)

School Awards

The kids' school had their award program for the second nine weeks yesterday. The kids are doing a fantastic job at school; we are very proud of them.

Actual letter grades for progress do not start in North Carolina until third grade. Luke made the Principal's list, meaning he is on or above grade level for all subjects. He also earned his award for meeting his reading goal. His extra awards were great; he earned the Art Award for his class (from the art teacher), and he also earned the Chinese Award (from the Chinese teacher)! Wow! Very impressed and apparently so are several of his teachers.

Madison, who is in their grade, earned straight-A's again this nine weeks. She was one of five third graders to do so of the approximately 110 third graders. Of those, she and two others had earned it last nine weeks too. Way to go!! She is a great student and laughed because her lowest grade was a 96 percent in her favorite class, history. She also earned her reading award and was also five then Chinese award from her Chinese teacher. Clearly, both kids do a great job in Chinese class. Way to go, kiddos!!!

Valentine's Day Cards

On Sunday afternoon, I helped the boys get their Valentine cards for preschool and school. Madison had already done hers (such an artist because she worked on them for two days!). This ended up being the first year all three kids could write out their Valentine cards! Even Alex in Pre-K was determined to write out his friends' names.

I had to take this picture. I was sitting next to Luke, getting the cards torn apart from the box, looked over, and he was holding his you gun in one hand and writing with the other. So funny! First, this is kitchen table, so I have no idea where he picked up the fun, and secondly, what a way to multitask!

Alex, our second lefty, did a great job with his cards. He is still leaning spacing, so he would get to the edge of the paper and still have letters left. He wanted to put them back on the middle of the name, where there was extra space in the word.

The Adventures of Sammy

Alex's preschool class has a new class pet, Sammy. Today, Alex was selected to bring Sammy home for the night. We were asked to take care of him and document his adventures with our family.

This is Sammy.

Alex was delighted to get Sammy ready for swim lessons this afternoon. He was a very good caretaker and even got Sammy all situated in his carrier to travel in the car.

After swim lessons and dinner at church, we returned home to document Sammy's afternoon. Alex loved creating the pictures.

Here is the adventure log! Alex drew most of the pictures, wrote "Sammy" and wrote his own name.

The carrier is all clean and ready to go back to preschool.