The Whitelaws

Thursday, March 21st - We felt like we were celebrating spring break early with KU, ACU, and Michigan basketball games and Grant's 12th birthday party.
Friday, March 22nd - More pre-spring break fun - Kevin's Titan Team was in the semifinals of the dodgeball tournament. Papa, Mima, and I went to watch and it was really fun! They lost their semifinal game, but then the teachers played the winning team and the teachers won!

Friday night, we ate dinner with Papa and Mima and then the kids spent the night. Saturday and Sunday, we spent some time at their house watching March Madness basketball.
Monday morning, Kevin took our car to get some maintenance repairs. Mima, Jenna, Kellen, and I went to the newly-opened-to-the-public Planetarium at the Air Force Academy. It was great!
Then we enjoyed the beautiful weather in Pulpit Rock Park. Jenna and Kellen loved "borrowing" the cousins dogs every time we visited Papa and Mima this week!
Tuesday, March 26th - Kevin and I went to see Captain Marvel, while Papa took the kids to the new Lego movie. Then, Mima joined us and we went to lunch at Rudy's. Then, we had some fun at the Penny Arcade (which is actually a quarter arcade) in Manitou Springs. Another beautiful day! We enjoyed a playground that afternoon, too.

It was my first visit to the Penny Arcade. They have some pretty interesting vintage games.
Wednesday, March 27th - (During the blizzard, we had been talking about how Kevin had to go to meetings in Greeley at the end of spring break. A couple years ago, we went with him when he had to go and Kellen LOVED swimming in the pool! Soon after that discussion, Kellen said, "Do you hear that?" We paused to listen and he said, "It's the swimming pool in Greeley calling my name!") Well, this year, we were not going to go with Kevin as he was just going for the day. So, Wednesday, we stayed at a local hotel so Kellen could fulfill his dream of swimming.

We swam, then kids and Kevin played basketball, we went to eat, went swimming some more, then curled up in our beds and watched National Treasure 2.
Thursday morning, March 28th - More swimming until we had to check out.
Thursday afternoon - Papa, Kevin, and Jenna climbed the Manitou Incline.

While they were climbing, Mima, Kellen, and I went to go to the zoo, but it was so crowded that we couldn't park. So, we decided to try out a new mini golf place instead.
It was another perfect day and the new mini golf place was really neat!
Friday, March 29th - Kevin went to Greeley for his meetings. It was cold so we had a relaxed day at home. But, we did need to venture out to the library.

It was a "wear your horse costume to the library" kind of day. We also realized that Spiderman Into The Spider Verse was available to rent from Redbox and Kellen had a free rental gift from his teacher that he had been saving to rent this movie. So, we rented it and watched it together.
Saturday, March 30th - We woke up to snow! And we enjoyed a lazy morning at home.
For lunch, we ventured out to the new Chuy's restaurant in town. A favorite of ours from when we lived in Austin. It's still amazing!

After lunch, we went to Papa and Mima's house to watch more March Madness games. Sunday, March 31st - church and then a quiet afternoon of resting, game watching, and preparing to go back to school the next day. We were all a little sad to see Spring Break end!

Tuesday, March 12th - A beautiful and warm day. Although we new a "bomb cyclone" storm was predicted for the next day, it was still surprising to get the school closure notification while playing catch outside!
Wednesday morning, March 13th - Snow Day! The morning wasn't too bad and then things really started picking up around 10 am. Our dentist office called to cancel our noon appointments (good thing)! We stayed cozy at home and enjoyed watching National Treasure (one of my favorites and the kids' first time to see it). By 11:00, we could barely see out our windows and already several inches had accumulated. The umbrella post on the table is about 7.5 inches tall. We decided we'd better settle in for the long haul and started a Lord of the Rings marathon.
Bomb Cyclone - when atmospheric pressure drops 24 milibars or more in 24 hours. What a storm! Pressure dropped from about 1012.9 to 985.1 a 27.8 milibar difference! With a record of 969 in Lamar - an all time low record for the state. The lower the pressure, the stronger the storm. Winds were similar to a category 2 hurricane!
Around noon, our power went out. I had almost finished mixing up a batch of pumpkin bread, so it was nice that the power didn't go out mid-bake! I just put the mix in the refrigerator with hopes to continue baking later. We were part way through the first Lord of the Rings.
The power outage time was nice and quiet. We read books, played games, kids did some stenciling and playing with their toys from Christmas that they haven't had much time with due to school and all.
4:30 pm - Power was out for about 4 hours - we were very grateful that it was that short amount of time as many were out of power for much longer. And we are very grateful to the power workers out in the storm working hard to restore our power! We were able to finish one movie and start the second, bake the pumpkin bread, bake M&M cookies, and have a warm dinner.
Thursday, March 14th - Snow Day #2! Nice to see past the deck and see the sun!
People started emerging in our neighborhood to start digging out.

It was great to see everyone working together to help each other. Jenna and Kellen loved helping out.

Check out how high the snow drifts were! There weren't enough shovels for me, so my contribution was cooking a big breakfast (that we actually ate at lunch time) - eggs, bacon, and pancakes for the hard workers.
After all that work, somehow, the kids still had energy to play!
After piano, Jenna had a playdate with a friend. And after that, Jenna and Kellen spent the night with Papa and Mima. I had to work that night - so glad I didn't have to work at all during the storm!!
Saturday, March 16th - Band Chili Dinner and Silent Auction fundraiser. It was fun to get out, eat delicious chili, hear some great music, and celebrate surviving the storm.

Saturday, March 2nd - While I was at work for a 12 hours shift, Kevin and the kids bought a new hamster. I was quite surprised when I arrived home! Meet Odin.

They learned about school and recess games in pioneer days. And even had a little spelling bee! Such a fun day! (See videos in "Kellen 2nd grade 2018-2019" folder.)