The Adventures of the Dahle Family

We ended up only getting about an inch of snow yesterday from the storm but thought our travel plans would still be a go today as we were scheduled to fly out in the afternoon. I had even purposely avoided booking our flight through Philadelphia and instead chose the Charlotte routing. Unfortunately we were thwarted by the fact that Philly is also a US Airways hub and that happened to be where our plane was coming from. And since the planes were grounded in Philly today due to the almost two feet of snow they received in the last two days our plane never made it to take us on the first leg of our journey. It is very unfortunate as the other flights went as scheduled. So instead we have to wait 3 more days before we can get seats on a flight to the west coast:( At least we aren't stranded someplace for those 3 days and can hang out at home. We're going to try and make the best of the extra days at home and have a fun plan for the next two days.

Jonas has been crawling for over a month now and is starting to pull himself up and cruise along the furniture. It's fun to see him on the move and he entertains himself so well but it also means a having him hanging on my legs when trying to cook, books pulled off shelves, and constantly sweeping his mouth to clean it of the paper, toys, and other items his sisters leave on the floor for him to eat.

Maren had a great day celebrating her third birthday. It started out with going to preschool with her friends which is her favorite thing to do each week and then to a playdate and lunch at Chic-Fil-A. That evening we had a few friends over for cupcakes and ice cream. It was a Pinkalicious party with pink cupcakes, pink frosting, and pink ice cream. It was funny because when she would open a present she would want to stop and play with it or read the book and the other kids were all antsy for her to keep opening the gifts. We just hope all those lovely terrible two incidents are out of her system now!

Almost two weeks ago, Maren decided that either she wanted snow or sand to play in but the weather was not cooperating with her desires either way so she took matters into her own hands and created her own wonderland on the kitchen floor with 10 pounds of sugar. Both her and Whitney had a great time playing in it but Whitney was quick to come running and place all the blame on Maren when she heard me coming downstairs from my shower. She didn't mention a thing about the mess prior to that time. Jonas on the other hand did not like being coated in sugar but he was the sweetest little polar bear!

Not two days later Maren repeated the stunt with the flour while Jim and I sat in the office next door. Unfortunately she also tried to clean some of it up with wet toilet paper which just turned into paper mache and her toys all were covered in sticky dough.
Needless to say the flour and sugar were moved to a different shelf in the pantry but that doesn't necessarily stop her as two days after the flour incident she climbed up four shelves in the pantry to get the candy jar but failed to think about how she was going to get it down and ended up dropping it on the tile floor. We found shattered pieces of glass halfway down the hall and all over the kitchen. Unfortunately she ended up with some cuts on her feet from it. She is a sneaky, little tornado to say the least! We did find her a pile of fake snow to play in this weekend at Breakfast with Santa.

...is what we will be enjoying at this time next year! Jim has verbally agreed to take a position with a group in Salt Lake so we'll be headed out there this coming summer. We're really looking forward to all the skiing, biking, climbing and being nursery leaders in our next ward :)

We had fun playing in the fallen leaves along the trail and throwing rocks in the water along the way.

We've had an interesting last couple of days with a Nor'easter and the remnants of Hurricane Ida hitting us. The winds were gusting to 60 mph blowing the rain in every direction and the tides were 7.6 feet above normal at the height of the storm. Keep in mind that our home elevation is 11 feet and the normal high tide is 2-3 feet. Luckily the water only made it to the top of the curb in front of our house though the building next door had it up to their yards. The neighborhood looked like white trash with everybody's cars on their lawns to get them as high as possible. Jim was sad to see the tire tracks in his beloved lawn when he returned home today (of course he had to be out of town when this all happened) but that's a lot easier to fix than a flooded car.
Though our home didn't flood we were completely surrounded by water. To the north and west about a block each way is a river which came over the banks and flooded the road heading south that provided our only escape route. There was over 2 feet of water on the road at high tide, luckily we have a truck and were able to return home dry unlike our next door neighbor who had to park her sedan a 1/4 mile away and wade through the thigh deep water to get home. Here are a couple of pictures about two hours before high tide. It was much deeper a few hours later.

Since we live in a townhouse community there are very few areas that are conducive for kids riding their bikes and most of them involve riding down the sidewalks with car bumpers overhanging on one side. As such Whitney doesn't get the chance to ride very often even with her training wheels on. Whitney wanted to bike to school early in the year so I rode the almost 2 miles to school with her. Jim picked her up that afternoon to ride home and decided upon returning home that if she could ride that far that it was time to take the training wheels off. He's been working with her off and on the last few weeks to ride without training wheels and slowly her balance has gotten better but it is scary to ride with so many cars nearby. This afternoon was a nice and sunny 70 degrees so we decided to head to the newly paved jogging/bike trail on base that is nice and wide with grass on either side for a soft crash landing. She started out with me holding on the back for balance but before long she was riding on her own with me running beside her. We had a few crashes in the mile she rode but she eventually learned to stop properly and figured out turning when we got back to the parking lot. She still has some work to do on starting herself but is doing awesome considering where we started today. She did have one hard crash right at the end into the truck's tire and bounced off hard with her handlebar bruising her cheek. Maren has made some progress in the biking realm this week as she finally learned to pedal her trike on her own. However, pedaling and steering at the same time are still a bit of a challenge. For now she still feels that being a Flintstone is a much faster way to travel.

We began the Halloween festivities this week by carving pumpkins Tuesday afternoon. The girls were so excited as they've been wanting to carve them since we bought them a few weeks ago. Maren ended up carving the little one that we got for Jonas as one of the pumpkins was stolen from our porch last week. We're just grateful that they didn't leave it smashed on our sidewalk. Wednesday night we headed to the church for Trunk or Treat. They had carnival games and a costume parade prior to going out for the trunk or treat. The girls also each got a medal for participating in the carved pumpkin contest.

Ever since Jim had heard about this race he had wanted to go so when I saw it advertised I made plans for us to go enjoy a true "redneck" experience. There were 11 different events as part of the derby. The first was a tug of war where the cars would start bumper to bumper and try to push the other past the cone.
The second was the burnout event where the audience judged who won by the person who could make the most smoke come from their tires/engine in a minute's time. The third race was one of the best where the driver had a bag over his head and the navigator had to direct him through 3 laps around the track. This was further complicated by the barrels full of soapy water placed around track that would make it slippery when they spilled after being hit.
There was the reverse race where they did three laps driving in reverse and then a myriad of races where they had to drag various implements behind the car. The winner was the one who could keep their piano, boat, etc. attached and intact the longest.

One of our favorite races was the appliance race. It was five laps and each successive lap you had to attach another household appliance to the vehicle.
The longest race of the night was the enduro race that was 50 laps. It started with 42 cars and only 8 were still running by the end. As the cars broke down or were wrecked they were left on the track to become additional obstacles. We had a good time enjoying the beautiful, sunny afternoon and the interesting entertainment on the track and in the crowd.

I haven't been great on keeping up on all of our activities so I'll put it all into one post. Whitney started playing the fall season of soccer. She even had a goal in her first game. We're adjusting to the busy afternoons twice a week when she has games. It makes for a rush to get homework done, ready for soccer, eat some dinner, to the game, and then usually to some other event afterwards.

She is loving going to kindergarten all day and especially loves getting to buy lunch at school one day each week. It's a good thing that she is at one of the few elementary schools that doesn't start until 9 as we've found she is not a morning person:) She has also found a new love in this fruit that I've purchased a few times recently--Starfruit. She gets so excited when I bring it home and usually eats most of it herself. Speaking of fruit, the girls and I had fun making this fruit bouquet one afternoon.

Maren is enjoying going to storytime and preschool once each during the week. We are doing a preschool co-op with 8 other kids so it's a bit hectic but the kids have fun. A few weeks ago we attended a Kids Day on base where they had a bounce house, crafts, and other fun activities along with a free lunch. Here's a few pictures of the fun:

Maren decided to beat up on Whitney one evening and pushed her off the bathroom stool. Unfortunately Whitney ended up hitting her head on the floor and cut it open. Luckily Dad was the one home with them so it was a 5 minute Urgent Care visit to get the 3 staples put in her head. She was so brave and didn't cry at all!