Where did Spring go?

This is what we were wondering after baking our pork chops instead of using the grill. It is also what we pondered after we readied our shopping list, drove in horrendous snow through many darkened streets, wondered why firetrucks were blocking the road by Cyprus Credit Union, and finally arrived at the Smith's parking lot only to find they were functioning on back-up power. While we were writing the list, we heard a very large "bang" outside and we seem to think a transformer blew or something. Many, many blocks in Magna were without power. We didn't even try to go into Smith's. There was an employee manually opening the sliding doors to let customers out, but probably not in. We ventured down the street to Ream's instead. They had power and many more customers who had come from Smith's to do their shopping.

After we had settled snug in our beds with our power still working, we were awakened two hours later to a beeping sound. I'm not talking about a quiet beeping like when your cell phone is dying. I'm talking about an obnoxiously loud chirping sort of beep. You know, like the kind when you are testing your fire alarm. Indeed, Weston walked into the hallway to find our fire alarm/carbon dioxide detector on the ceiling beeping. We would silence it temporarily only to find it beeping thirty seconds later. Being worried it might actually be carbon monoxide setting it off (the blue light was flashing instead of the red for fire), we went downstairs to get the CO monitor Weston's parents had given us for Christmas one year. Turns out there was nothing to worry about. The door leading into the garage had been left open and we read in the owners manual condensation due to cold temperatures can cause false alarms. We had to reset the dang thing by turning off the power, unplugging the monitor, taking out the battery, pushing the reset button, then getting it put back together again. It was crazy! And it took us an hour and twenty minutes from the first beep to the time we got back in bed. Thankfully, Ellie slept through all of this. We settled back in bed hoping the worst was over and crossing our fingers it wouldn't beep again.

At 7:20 a.m. Weston woke up abruptly. He had slept in. Why? Because our power went out in the middle of the night and his alarm did not go off. The house was freezing, Ellie wanted to watch Mickey Mouse, and I wasn't sure how long we would be without power. Thankfully, the power was restored within the hour, but seriously, where did spring go?

Happy Birthday Daddy!

Love, Ellie

Date Nights

It seems like the last few weeks have been non-stop for us. I've decided that unless there is something especially exciting like birthdays and such, I will try to blog each Wednesday while Weston is at Young Men's. We'll see.
Last Tuesday, Weston and I went to Hale Center Theater's production of Fiddler on the Roof. It was really good. We thought the actors and actresses did an excellent job portraying their characters and the accents. They did an especially good job on "Tevye's Dream". They had what looked like giant stick puppets with huge heads running around the stage. They used a black light and had fluorescent paints on the costumes. They also had the butcher's wife floating down in a harness. Creepy, but really fun!
The next night, St. Patrick's Day, Weston's work gave us tickets in the lower bowl for the Jazz game. It was a really fun and laid back game. The Jazz played the Timberwolves and were ahead most of the game which lead to lots of fun dunks and stuff. At times I wondered if we were watching the Globetrotters. We got two date nights in a row! Pretty awesome huh?


Saturday, I had "the ladies" over to paint dangles for the months of April and May. It's always a crazy day, but I feel like I accomplish so much when it's all over. I'm sure Weston is ready for our last set of dangles to be finished so our house won't be full of women chatting and painting once a month!
And now, some random pictures of Ellie playing at Grandma and Grandpa Sorenson's house:

Ellie put her "underwears" from her dress on over her pants. Crazy girl!

Cinder-Ellie

Lately, Ellie has been so helpful (when she wants to be). She helps me clean up her toys, puts away her clothes in her drawers after I fold them, helps unload the dishwasher, feeds the dog, puts the clothes in the washer and then later in the dryer, dusts, sweeps, and loves the vacuum. We even bought her her own pink hand broom and dustpan at IKEA.
We snapped this picture of Ellie dusting at the end of January. She took her pants off and put her rain boots on all by herself. :) She's getting to be so independent.