Houghton Band Festival

MAN do these kids sound good!  I'm so impressed with the Houghton Band.  They got all 1's at their band festival, and they deserved it.  I thoroughly enjoy listening to them!!

Winter Wonderland

School is still cancelled as the upper peninsula digs out from the blizzard.   It took us over an hour to find, and then excavate, the mailbox.  Colby spent another hour looking for the snowmobile, which had been parked in the yard.  It was literally an archeological dig, which he worked on diligently, but was never able to free.  There's nearly five feet of snow in the yard, between what was previously on the ground, and then our added 30 inches.  It's been awhile since we've seen that much all at once.

 The street - totally drifted in.

 Basketball just isn't a challenge anymore.  

 Since there was so much snow on the back deck, the boys thought it would be fun to make a snowboard jump from the roof.  If ever they were going to be on the roof, I suppose now was the safest time, given that there wasn't that far a distance for them to fall,  and there was plenty of the white stuff to pad their landing.

 Trying to find the snowmobile.  

 We finally found it!  Come on, mailman!  Bring us some mail!

 I have to admit... it's very pretty.  

Celebrating a Birthday

We may be digging out from a blizzard, but it's still the man's birthday.  Couldn't let the day go by without celebrating with a sauna and cake!  Normally, Mim and Pops Aho join us for Rob's birthday, but given that the plow still hadn't made an appearance and we were snowed in, it was an immediate-family only affair.

 Had to get a picture of just how much snow was on that sauna!!

Post-Blizzard Dig Out

Rob's birthday was spent digging out from yesterday's blizzard, which dumped upwards of 30" on us in a single day.  That, coupled with the high winds, made everything impassible.  School was cancelled for the umpteenth time.  Rob got the plow truck stuck, and stuck again, trying to clear our drive way.  It took him seven hours just to do the driveway.  The road... well.. the county plow truck wouldn't be able to get to that for quite awhile.  We ended up getting plowed out around 6 pm Monday night.   The entire road was filled with 3 feet of fresh snow, with deeper drifts.  It was pretty crazy.  All that Monday, we saw a few snow-shoers and cross country skiiers, and once a deep-powder snowmobiler... but that was it.  We were truly, legitimately, stuck at home.  Quite the way to spend a birthday for poor Rob!  But you know what?  It was kind of cool digging out as a family.  We really pulled together to find our home under all that snow, and that was a pretty awesome thing.

This lamp post is 8 feet tall.  Reagan is NOT standing on a bank.  And the road is this deep for all two miles.

 The snow was too much for our plow truck, even though Rob had plowed once half way through the storm.  He got stuck, and it took all five of us, two neighbors, and our tractor to get it out.  Reagan, as the littlest one, got the job of crawling under the truck itself and digging out the axels.