Seabrook

So last weekend we headed out to Seabrook for our annual trip with the McClains and the Smiths.  (Seabrook is near Ocean Shores on the coast.)  It was just as fun this year as it was last year--actually, maybe more fun for Mom and Dad because I wasn't such a grumpy terror this year like I was last year.  Plus Sissy slept great for her naps and at night!

All the kids got to sleep together in one room.  The first and last night I slept on a little fold out bed.  But the second night I got to sleep on the top bunk!!!  So fun!

This year Seabrook had a brand new indoor pool, which was really awesome because it rained almost the whole time we were there.  Last year was snow, this year was rain.  Maybe next year will be sun?  We had to bundle up just to walk a block to the pool.

But the pool was heated so we had a blast swimming in it.  And I swam all by myself with just my floaties on.  Swim lessons last summer sure paid off!

One of our favorite parts about the pool was the hot tub.  Sydney wanted to hang out in there the whole time.

We swam for a long time--right into Syd's nap time.  So she took a little rest in the pool with Dad.

The house we stayed in had THREE floors and lots of stairs.  Sydney got so good at going up and down them like all the other kids that Mom took down the stair gates at our own house when we got home.

We made and decorated sugar cookies since it was so close to Valentine's Day.

Check out these two lovebirds.  Charlotte wanted to be by Ryan's side every minute of the weekend.

I wish I'd thought of putting that much frosting on my cookie.  YUM!

Instead I made a special cookie for my Mom.

Here's a picture of part of the upstairs.  There was a whole room just for playing games and watching movies.  There were tons of kids' toys and we made sure to play with ALL of them while we were there--and all at the same time.  So Fun!

 One day we went driving ON THE BEACH!  I didn't get any pics of that because I was in the car, but it was soooo cool!

Our last day there it finally stopped raining and we got to play at the playground for a bit.

The slide was really wet, so Ryan helped dry it off for us.

Then we went on a really short, but very cool, nature walk.

Syd was napping, so she totally missed out.  Chris tried to bring out scooters and things that we brought with us to the park, but the trail was a little tricky, so he ended up having to turn around.

I love vacation!  I wish we could live there every day!

Happy Groundhog Day

If you look at the last time I posted, you'll notice I've fallen a tad behind with my New Year's resolution to post every week.  Hopefully, I'll do better in February--especially since I saw my shadow on Feb. 2 which means 6 more weeks of winter and a lot of time stuck inside because of the cold weather.

Oh, I'm sorry.  Are you confused about my shadow?  Aren't groundhogs supposed to see their shadow--not little boys?  Well, apparently you didn't realize that I was a groundhog for a day.  See, my preschool teachers taught us all about groundhogs on the day before Groundhog Day, so I decided that I wanted to be a groundhog.  I crawled around and made funny noises (which really annoyed Mom) and even built myself a den.  And since groundhogs hibernate in the winter, that's exactly what I did--I slept in my den.  Quite comfy.

Unfortunately, when I woke up the next morning, I saw my shadow.  Sorry everyone--six more weeks of winter.

Have you ever seen this?

I am guessing that there's something here you haven't seen before.

An ice storm happens when there is cold air at the surface of the earth and warm air up in the clouds.  The rain comes down and freezes to everything.

 

These pictures were taken first thing in the morning on Thursday.  It continued to rain for another 6 hours after this.  Everything got heavy and broke.

Eventually these needles were one solid block of ice.  Not as cool as seeing each one in an individual shaft of ice.

How do you open this?

 
Here's a close up.  By the time dad got around to deicing his car, it was 3/4" thick (not pictured).

 Check out how thick the ice was. 

Guess what this is.

 

See the web?

The ice is as big as pearls on a necklace.  That is one strong web.  Originally there were two, but dad grabbed one trying to figure out what it was.

Here he is trying to kill himself.  It is still raining when this was taken.  We call that Wackadoodle!  The ice weighed down the branches and caused them to explode like fire crackers.  Imagine tying a bag of ice to every little branch.  When the top broke it took out two other branches on the way down.

The ice caused the tops to pop off of the trees.  These came from 60' up in the air and some stabbed into the ground several inches. 

This is a 12" diameter tree that broke off and landed in the neighbors yard.  There is a branch in the foreground that makes it look smaller.  It hit the ground first and then fell back into the fence. Amazingly it only killed a few bushes in the yard.

It takes a lot of weight to do this.

 This one is just "Awesome"!

Dad has more than 20 pictures of different trees in the neighborhood that all look like this.  Here are just a few.

The entire neighborhood was planted with gorgeous flowering plumbs.  They look amazing in the Spring.  At least they used to.  Virtually everyone of them had major breaks.  Many are going to be a complete loss.

 

Daddy made a snowball!

We got our first snow of the year and it was lots of fun!  Daddy took me sledding. 

This is the street coming into our neighborhood.  It wasn't getting much action from the cars.  Getting up the hill was so easy.

 

Coming down was harder.  I had my eyes closed almost the whole way.  The snow was blowing in them.

Mommy and Sissy are getting ready for their turn.

They weren't as good as me and daddy.