wild snowstorm!

Here are some pictures of what the storm has brought us today. (These are taken from our bedroom window at 10:00 at night, so pardon the terrible quality.)


I wouldn't be surprised if that car was just a big pile of snow by morning!

We survived the ice storm!

We lost power on Thursday night, in what may end up being the winter's most spectacular storm. Out of 500,000 paying electicity customers in NH, 400,000 lost power! Some folks (like a woman Alex works with at Visiting Geeks) won't be getting their power back until Christmas!

On Friday it was 60 degrees in the apartment by 11:00 AM, and dropping, with no sign of returning power. I had thawed out a nice big half-turkey to roast on Friday and make a feast with, but we had no oven AND no refrigerator to keep it fresh! We packed up and headed for Massachusetts, to our brother-in-law Bobby's house, taking the turkey feast to pay for our room and board. :)

We had a lovely feast with Bobby, Alison, and all five Webber children, and came back home on Saturday to find that there was still no power, and our apartment was so cold, the thermostat couldn't even register the temperature! We grabbed all the food that was still good, wished the cats luck, and headed back down to Bobby's until Monday, which was when the rumor mill said we'd be getting power back.

Fast-forward through a weekend of fun and mayhem with Jack, Caiden and Rebecca, and here we are home again at last! We have to go grocery shopping to re-stock our fridge, but otherwise, we came through the whole episode just fine. :)

we have a library!

I figured that since I am very friendly to the idea of taking baby walks (especially since some tiny folks don't seem to be able to take their naps without going for walks sometimes!) I'd better see if there is a library near us for a walk destination. There IS!

It is pretty darn cool for a small-town library, and includes two rooms off to the side where Alex and/or I can sit unobtrusively with a baby. If they don't have books that we want, they are part of a borrowing-books system, so they can get them from another library.

We went and got library cards today, and to start with, Alex got a book by Dan Simmons (one of his favorite authors) and I got a big fat book AND an awesome CD and book kit for learning Italian. I am planning on listening to the CDs while I take many walks on my maternity leave, and reading this giant book when I'm too tired/lazy to take walks. :)

our beach!

We went to the beach!

"Look, the ocean!" Alex helpfully says. (I find it funny that he's wearing a Pacific t-shirt.)

You can see that there are about a million rocks to throw into the ocean. Alex revealed that he can skip stones like nobody's business. One of them even skipped about twelve times, surfing all the way over a wave before sinking!

We found a plank, so Alex said I had to walk it. No excuses, he said.


We also drove along and found about a million little shops and restaurants along the coast, but I forgot to take pictures of any of those. Oh well--we'll be going back throughout the summer!