Snow snow snow snow

Yesterday, wearing my gloves, Madeline surveyed Friday night's snowfall.

Out the front door, on the top step, I measured 20 inches of snow -- we must have had two feet at ground level.

I did my best to get us shoveled out.  Happily, I was bailed out by a friendly neighbor with a snowblower.  This freed up some time for a short walk to the pond to stand on top of a snowheap.

Down the street, a tree and some wires were down.  For our part, though, we never did end up losing power.

In fact, aside from being buried in snow, our house seems to have made out fine.

A trek in the snow, however short, demands a cup of cocoa.

And, warmed by her cocoa, Madeline practiced her discus-throwing and shot-putting in the living room.

Today, Madeline had more energy than she quite knew what to do with.  I managed to expend some energy on further snow shoveling, but Madeline had no such outlet.  So we spent some time on art projects ...

... but eventually she had to get out of the house.  We braved the roads, got lunch, and stopped off at a drug store for a few supplies.

All this quite exhausted Madeline, who took a nice, deep nap.

Snow-day-pocalypse

The last few days we had late and busy evenings and little time for pictures or posts. Today, though, was a snow day.  My office was closed, Brown was closed, and we kept Madeline home.  In the morning she lounged.

But after her nap, we played in the snow.  Madeline was excited about eating snow.

I didn't have a free hand for pictures when she was having the most fun, though -- Summer and I were involved in a hard-fought snowball battle much to Madeline's raucous-giggling delight.

After that, we had to have cocoa.

As afternoon became evening, the snowfall became a blizzard.  Madeline pulled up a tiny chair to watch with her friends Horton and -- appropriately -- snowy owl.  (She brought my gloves, too.)

Before she went to bed, a yardstick out the front door measured six inches of accumulation.  After bedtime, the number was seven inches.  Now it's over nine.  And the wind at T. F. Green airport, less than 3 miles away, has been measured at sixty miles per hour.

Our power has blinked a couple times, and I expect we'll lose it in earnest soon -- as of now, 78,427 other National Grid customers in Rhode Island have.  So -- so long for tonight!

Dance party and Horton

Tonight we had a dance party!

Also, here's an anecdote from Friday: Madeline, sad and crying, asked for her plush Horton the elephant.  "Can I have Horton please?"  Horton was handed over.  "I wipe tears with Horton.  Maddie wipe tears with Horton's trunk."  And so she did.

Zoo

Today was fun!

We had brunch at T's -- our first visit to the home of the best brunch in Cranston.

And it was quite good indeed.  Madeline liked her waffle so much she did a waffle dance.

Then we went to the zoo!

After a tempestuous first few minutes, Madeline was (almost) all smiles and laughs.

She especially liked the elephants, dancing and swaying with one of them (Alice).

We returned home; Madeline took a nice long nap; we walked to the grocery store; next came dinner, a fun bath, and finally bedtime.