Hip Hip (School Delay) Hooray
The kids had their first two hour delay of the school year last week. How appreciative they were of the extra two hours of sleep 😃.
We had a winter weather advisory Wednesday into Thursday. Freezing rain was predicted but the temperature overnight was barely going to fall into freezing. I thought there was a good possibility we'd just get rain and not freezing rain and the kids would not have a delay. In fact, I didn't even engage in our normal protocol for when I think there's going to be a 2 hour school delay. If I think there's a good chance of a delay, I have the kids not set their phone alarm (their usual mode of disrupting their slumber for the night). If the kids set their alarm for the normal time and their alarms go off and there's a delay, it's hard for them to fall back asleep. If they've not set their alarm and there's a delay, then they get to sleep until they wake up or until I wake them up to get ready for school for the new time. If they don't set their alarms because I think that perhaps there will be a delay and there's not delay, I have the unpleasant task of waking them up at their normal, early time and being the bearer of bad news (no delay and it's time to get up).
Anyway, the kids did set their alarm for Thursday. So when I found out about the delay, at about 5:00 am, I waited until about 5:30 and then I quietly slipped into each child's room, told him or her quietly about the good news of the delay and asked him or her to set the alarm for two hours later. The kids, thankfully, all fell back asleep after they found out about the delay and reset their alarms.
Right before Donnie left for work, he told me to come and look at something. One of our bushes (I guess you'd call it a bush. It's actually bigger than a bush but it's not a tree) had completely collapsed under the weight of the ice. It was lying almost prone on the ground. It was a bit of a strange sight- we've had worse ice storms than this but had never seen anything like it before.
While my kids were still in bed, I could hear that some of the neighborhood kids were outside playing- they were all between the ages of six and nine. I heard them at one point in our yard discussing our fallen over plant. I decided to go outside to take some pictures of our fallen over bush. When I went outside, the kids were across the street in one of the yards. As soon as they saw me outside, they ran across the street to me and said, "Miss Maria, Miss Maria, look at what happened!" and pointed to my fallen over bush. I told them I'd come outside to take pictures of it. When I was getting ready to go back inside the house, Collin asked me to put on a coat (I was just in a sweatshirt) and come back out so that I could play with him. He's just the sweetest (when he isn't being ornery- like any child I suppose :)).
The ice was really pretty and is the stuff 50mm camera lens dreams are made of :).
Ice on the deck railings-
Ice on branches- here's a close up
and here's from further away
This is one of the bushes in the front of our house- not the one that fell over
There was ice all over it.
Here is the same bush hours later- even though the temperature warmed up several degrees throughout the day, some of the ice remained
It has fallen and it can't get up- our ice ladled bush
It has risen!! Our bush made its way upright again.
We had a winter weather advisory Wednesday into Thursday. Freezing rain was predicted but the temperature overnight was barely going to fall into freezing. I thought there was a good possibility we'd just get rain and not freezing rain and the kids would not have a delay. In fact, I didn't even engage in our normal protocol for when I think there's going to be a 2 hour school delay. If I think there's a good chance of a delay, I have the kids not set their phone alarm (their usual mode of disrupting their slumber for the night). If the kids set their alarm for the normal time and their alarms go off and there's a delay, it's hard for them to fall back asleep. If they've not set their alarm and there's a delay, then they get to sleep until they wake up or until I wake them up to get ready for school for the new time. If they don't set their alarms because I think that perhaps there will be a delay and there's not delay, I have the unpleasant task of waking them up at their normal, early time and being the bearer of bad news (no delay and it's time to get up).
Anyway, the kids did set their alarm for Thursday. So when I found out about the delay, at about 5:00 am, I waited until about 5:30 and then I quietly slipped into each child's room, told him or her quietly about the good news of the delay and asked him or her to set the alarm for two hours later. The kids, thankfully, all fell back asleep after they found out about the delay and reset their alarms.
Right before Donnie left for work, he told me to come and look at something. One of our bushes (I guess you'd call it a bush. It's actually bigger than a bush but it's not a tree) had completely collapsed under the weight of the ice. It was lying almost prone on the ground. It was a bit of a strange sight- we've had worse ice storms than this but had never seen anything like it before.
While my kids were still in bed, I could hear that some of the neighborhood kids were outside playing- they were all between the ages of six and nine. I heard them at one point in our yard discussing our fallen over plant. I decided to go outside to take some pictures of our fallen over bush. When I went outside, the kids were across the street in one of the yards. As soon as they saw me outside, they ran across the street to me and said, "Miss Maria, Miss Maria, look at what happened!" and pointed to my fallen over bush. I told them I'd come outside to take pictures of it. When I was getting ready to go back inside the house, Collin asked me to put on a coat (I was just in a sweatshirt) and come back out so that I could play with him. He's just the sweetest (when he isn't being ornery- like any child I suppose :)).
The ice was really pretty and is the stuff 50mm camera lens dreams are made of :).
Ice on the deck railings-
Ice on branches- here's a close up
and here's from further away
This is one of the bushes in the front of our house- not the one that fell over
There was ice all over it.
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