We escaped the big snow and ice storm, which went south of us, and caused Ohio State to close down for the day (scott says, "wimps!" ha ha). I've checked the 15 day extended forecast and I banking on the fact that Feb 7th is forecasted to be 42 degrees! Lets hope its true! However, in the mean time, Im so excited that we are now gaining over 2 minutes a day in sun light and by this time next week we will be gaining 2.5 min a day, and the sun will be setting at just about 6pm and rising a good ten minutes before 8am!! Now, all we need is the groundhog to not see his shadow! We have good memories of passing through Punxsutawny, PA, walking by the groundhog museum, and eating some of the best pizza in PA. We even passed by the "Calabrese Garage" in town. We would stop there on our treks between NYC and MI as way to get off the beating path of i-80. We would stay at the "historic" Panthall Hotel, where they even had "pet rooms" where your dogs could stay with their human guests!

Jan 28, 2009 7:56 AM 5:47 PM 9h 50m 10s + 2m 14s
Jan 29, 2009 7:55 AM 5:48 PM 9h 52m 27s + 2m 16s
Jan 30, 2009 7:54 AM 5:49 PM 9h 54m 45s + 2m 18s
Jan 31, 2009 7:53 AM 5:51 PM 9h 57m 05s + 2m 20s
Feb 1, 2009 7:52 AM 5:52 PM 9h 59m 28s + 2m 22s
Feb 2, 2009 7:51 AM 5:53 PM 10h 01m 52s + 2m 24s
Feb 3, 2009 7:50 AM 5:55 PM 10h 04m 17s + 2m 25s

To celebrate the presidential inauguration we made an Inauguration cake! Frankie called it the best cake ever! ha ha! We made it with a new recipe we found on All Recipes , and used dark chocolate cocoa! yum! We cut the sugar by about 25% and it was still sweet enough. We also cut the whole recipe in half and then used our little camping pans to make small round cakes so we could layer them. I mean, after all, if we had a whole cake we would have to eat the whole thing... Then we made simple butter cream frosting with powered sugar, butter, milk and vanilla. Sprinkles of course! Enjoy a slice!

Oh, Im noticing its -1F. Well, really Im trying not to notice. Calling all ground hogs. Can you call the end of winter please!

our resident artists

Frankie just gave me this picture she drew of a duck. I thought it was really beautiful so I decided to post it here! And not to be outdone, Bee drew a mermaid and then cut it out!

Snow nest

the snow keeps coming! We had snow all day saturday and more yesterday evening. We did get up to 25F yesterday so we took the "break" in the weather to play outside. here is Bee standing in our front yard! We wanted to make a snow fort, but the snow is too cold to pack, so Be had a great idea of just digging a hole in the snow and making a snow nest instead! Does that officially make us snow birds?

Christmas Pics

Here are some pics from Christmas (finally).  Some of them are blurry but I like them anyway, so, they're included.

record breaking winter

Would you be surprised if I said it was snowing today? It is. But it is going up to 16 degrees this afternoon! I just read on the special weather statement on weatherunderground.com that the winter 2009 in Lansing is the snowiest winter (to date) since 1952 and the second snowiest in recorded history. We have 48.5" of snow already, and we are only 4 weeks into winter, officially!

no school

Well the weather station is reporting that it is -10 this morning and the windchill is -22. But hey, we are warmed than our neighbors down "south" in jackson where their temp is reported at -13! So, school is closed! Of course MSU is not closed which creates its own set of issues but i think we will have two happy campers when they get up in a little while!

its a balmy -7 out there at 8am. Im looking forward to noon when we should top out at 0. well, we did make the salmon, risotto and broccoli on monday. Tuesday was left over bean soup, and last night we made chicken pot pie. im thinking san su tonight but it could be leftover pot pie. And now lets walk the dogs. The cold weather really hurts their paws - poor things!

But really cold mornings can have beautiful sunrises... here is the view down our street!

we were coming home from school today and just before we turned the corner for beech street we saw this house - we call it the icicle house! Take a look at those icicles!!! Well, subzero temps can really dress us the landscape!

21

21 is the sum of our forecasted highs for wed, thur, and fri this coming week (9, 7, and 5 respectively). Anyone seen that ground hog yet?

Update: So now thursday's high is predicted to 1 degree F. You know what? that makes sunday's weather prediction of 33 look down right balmy. I think we'll go running in shorts and a tank top!

Update 2: I forgot to report on supper. We had pasta y fagioli (AKA bean soup), spinach salad and bread. yum! great for a cold and snowy day! Tonight I think we are going to have salmon, winter squash risotto and broccoli. Lets see if we really get our acts together tonight for that!

updates on the sun

We are starting to gain fast and furious here up in the north country! By this time next week we will be gaining a a minute and a half of sunlight a day, and Jan 11 marks the first day the sun will start to rise earlier!!

Jan 8, 2009 8:08 AM 5:22 PM 9h 14m 02s + 1m 14s
Jan 9, 2009 8:08 AM 5:23 PM 9h 15m 20s + 1m 18s
Jan 10, 2009 8:08 AM 5:24 PM 9h 16m 42s + 1m 22s
Jan 11, 2009 8:07 AM 5:26 PM 9h 18m 07s + 1m 25s
Jan 12, 2009 8:07 AM 5:27 PM 9h 19m 36s + 1m 28s
Jan 13, 2009 8:07 AM 5:28 PM 9h 21m 08s + 1m 32s
Jan 14, 2009 8:06 AM 5:29 PM 9h 22m 44s + 1m 35s

Now, in case you've been wondering what we've been eating, well its nothing too special. Last night was spaghetti with homemade pesto, the day before was beans, eggs, tortillas, salsa and such, and the day before that we went out to eat at a yummy fish place.

If you dont live on a hill you might ask well just make your own with the deck!

Happy 2009!

Its a beautiful but cold morning here in mid michigan. The sun is peaking out from behind some broken clouds and the roads don't look too snow covered. A see a nice run in the forecast! It's going to get up to 31 degrees today! We're nearly 10 days past the shortest day of winter. Our mornings haven't gotten any earlier, but the evenings are a bit longer, with the sun not starting to set until 5:15pm (civil twilight, 5:47pm). Lets not talk sunrise. we're morning people. We are still on a two person crusade to get michigan on the central time zone to wake that sun up an hour earlier! ha ha. Scott's approach is to simply just live on central time, but I'm going to get a petition going and send it off to the legislature. think they will take it seriously? We've already gained 5 minutes! So, here is the projection for the next few days:

Jan 1, 2009 8:09 AM 5:15 PM 9h 06m 43s + 46s
Jan 2, 2009 8:09 AM 5:16 PM 9h 07m 33s + 50s
Jan 3, 2009 8:09 AM 5:17 PM 9h 08m 28s + 54s
Jan 4, 2009 8:09 AM 5:18 PM 9h 09m 27s + 58s
Jan 5, 2009 8:09 AM 5:19 PM 9h 10m 30s + 1m 02s
Jan 6, 2009 8:09 AM 5:20 PM 9h 11m 37s + 1m 06s
Jan 7, 2009 8:08 AM 5:21 PM 9h 12m 47s + 1m 10s