Brrrrrrrrrrrr!

Wow, it has sure been cold here the last couple days! An arctic air mass blew over from Alaska and brought our temps to -16 with a wind chill of -27. School was cancelled Thursday and Friday, because it's too dangerous to have kids walking and waiting for buses in those temps. So, we get a 5 day weekend since we also have Martin Luther King Day off on Monday! I've been relaxing here at home with the kids, just playing games and having fun together. I am looking forward to the 'warmer' weather that we are supposed to have tomorrow (up in the 20's) so that the kids can play outside in the snow like they have been asking. At least then I can just bundle them up and won't have to worry about them getting frostbitten!

Our 2 cats are crazy, we made them stay in all last night and today, and they kept meowing at the door to go outside! They do have a cozy box with a heating pad under a wool blanket in the garage and also a heated water bowl so that they can drink water when they're out there, without it turning to ice. We lock the garage open about 4 inches so they can go in and out. We need to get a cat door, I think. It finally warmed up to a whole 2 degrees above zero tonight, so we let them go out. (To me, it seems weird that it is much warmer at night sometimes than it is during the day.)

Despite the cold weather, our hearts are warm and happy! We all appreciate the beauty of winter very much.