Snow day!

Yesterday might very well have been the first snow day that we were actually in Maryland for and that I decided was completely legitimate to shut everything down. It doesn't hurt that Alex was under the weather anyway and I am now looking directly into the whole "two working parents" thing starting in just a few weeks, so that a family snow day is especially special.

Here's Terry measuring the snow in the back yard. If you can't see, it's 11".

And here's Terry washing his fur hat in the snow as instructed when he bought it in Russia.

And the children playing in the snow, in the hour or so during which Alex was feeling fine.

Wordless Wednesday

Finally finally finally

Today I received my offer to join the 176th Generalist class of A-100. Starting March 10 I begin my foreign service career!

Eating out of the pantry

Back when we thought I would start working in January we started to load up the freezer with dinners and leftovers to make weeknight mealtimes easier. Then it didn't happen. Then we realized we didn't have any more plastic containers. Or room in the freezer for anything. We also realized that our budget had sort of relied on a second paycheck starting in February, so there was some rejiggering to do there.

All of that combined to produce the "pantry challenge". I am 100% confident we can live off our pantry for at least one week, excepting a few weekly necessities. I have allotted $20 as part of the challenge to load up on milk, eggs and fruit. Depending on what kind of dent we make, the challenge might run 2 weeks. I'll post how it goes.

Tonight we're serving up leftovers from our housewarming party last night. Pumpkin and spinach ziti, or Spanish rice? It's fun to have options.

Wordless Wednesday

National Building Museum

Most parents around here who have been have raved about this museum. It's one of the few in the DC area you have to pay to go to ... but then there was a Certifikid coupon ... and cue up our family outing.

We didn't realize that the parking meters near the museum would be 2h limit even on a Saturday, and we hadn't brought quarters. The museum shop will give you quarters but only $2, which will last one hour. It turned out the meter we parked at was broken, only discovered after feeding several quarters into it, and a parking enforcement guy happened by just as this was going on and told us what we could do (call a number on the meter, give them the code for the meter and get a confirmation code back - then we could park free for 2 hours ... or rather, park for the cost of the quarters we'd already put in)

But I digress.

I do now see why the reviews by single adults are not as enthusiastic as the heaps of praise given by parents. There are a few interesting exhibits about building stuff. We poked into the current exhibit about Los Angeles and some of the architecture and infrastructure projects over the last 60 or so years. The rest of the time we played.

There's a room with various types and sizes of building blocks. Some are small enough to put together on the very large light up from below table (pretty cool). The chairs are made of the same sturdy foam and have some of the shapes of the pieces.

 Then there were the much larger, almost child size pieces wherein Alex built herself a little house to hide in. Around the room are showcases of various types of building blocks on the market in various parts of the world over the last century or so.

The Building Zone is only for children ages 6 and under, so this will be our last and only year. Tickets to this room are included in admission but you get a specific time you can go and only get  45 minutes to be there. The kids loved it. There's a mini house decked out with a kitchen, living room area etc. There's a slew of costumes of various professions (it took a bit to get Zoltan out of the fireman jacket), a train table, a car carpet, various forms of building objects like Magna-tiles, soft foam blocks, plenty of enormous Legos - the kids and Terry built a house here too.

There's a reading nook with (almost) all books about building and construction.

 In short, 45 minutes is barely enough time but I like that they restrict the numbers so all kids can easily get to all activities. When we got home, both kids napped for 2 hours. Verdict? Yeah, we'll go back for sure. 

Fishies!

Alex has been asking for a fish for a little while, and I know Terry has missed having a pet around the house. A few weeks ago we got the aquarium and set it up, worked to get the water to the right pH and such. Then things got busy, we went to the cabin, etc. We finally got around to welcoming five new fishies into our lives. Being guppies, one female was pregnant when we brought them home and delivered within the first week. It will be exciting to see how many babies survive into adulthood - the cycle of life acting out in our own home!

Edited to add: a few weeks into this new experience, illness has struck. One adult and all the remaining babies have fallen to Ick. Yes, that is really the name of the disease. We're hoping to keep the rest alive.

A place for everything, and everything in its place

Once we got through Tummy Bug 2014, there was the one last basement chore I'd been wanting to complete: the organization of the play room.  There are still a few stragglers - the dresser that needs to move to its new home in the study/guest room, the toy workbench we've been trying to sell on craigslist (Anyone want one? We can't sell a thing on that site to save our lives.). But as of today, every item either has a reasonable home, or has been thrown away or packed away for future rotation. I'm proud of the results.

couldn't resist one pic from the epic tummy bug

 

Wordless Wednesday

Jammin' on the jam

Somehow, this summer I neglected to mention that we canned a full 17 pints of peach jam. We'd gotten a big box of seconds and didn't have much time to deal with them, so rather than trying to can slices, or make a pie, or whatever, we jammed it all.  Then we thought about how we'd have to give a lot away (they make great Christmas gifts!)

Then we started eating it. Particularly, Zoltan started eating it. It is the "j" of his pb -n- j. It's the flavor and sweetener in his yogurt. He puts it on his pancakes.

In four months we have gone through seven jars and today I opened the eighth.