Free Willy!!

Guess what Sadie brought to "Show and Tell" today. I arrived at preschool with Sadie lugging in her gigantic stuffed killer whale when all the teachers gave me a sobering look. I had no idea that the night before a whale in Orlando's Sea World had killed a trainer. Once they told me about the accident I felt so stupid for bringing in that giant whale. Only Sadie could embarrass me like that:-)

I'm sorry for the family and friends of the trainer but I think it's time they let Shamu back into the wild. That's quite a shocker coming from me who used to watch the Shamu show at least twice a week when we lived in San Diego. If you think about the space they have to swim in compared to an ocean, it's like living in a bath tub. No wonder the whale went crazy.

Bar Mode...again

I haven't wanted to write negative remarks so I've been keeping my true feelings from the blog for the last two months. Many of you know Chase has been studying for the Maryland Bar exam. After our horrendous summer last year of Chase studying for the California Bar, this one didn't seem nearly as bad. The biggest difference is that Jack is now a 9 months old sleeping through the night and not a newborn baby who sleeps 3 hour increments at best. This also means I am much more capable of handling matters at home whereas in July of last year I was a basket case. The other difference is that Sadie is relatively more normal these days and I can see Jack has finally become a part of the family rather than a rude interruption into her once "100% Mom" life she was living before. Another difference is that being that it's not summer, Sadie has had preschool which gives me a break twice a week when last summer we were going out of our minds with boredom.

With all these substantial differences out of the way, it has been REALLY hard these past two months. Chase has been studying like CRAZY and I have been left to entertain the kids throughout the day, night and weekends all by myself. It's a rough job and it wears on you after a while. The worst week was when we were all stuck inside during the snow storm with nothing to do. Chase had to study so we all just tried to be as quiet as possible in the basement while he wore his Bose earphone upstairs. Why couldn't we have been hit with the biggest snow storm of the year when he was actually working and could play with us? I held myself together until about a week before he was to take the bar and totally broke down. I just wanted to be free of the kids for an hour....that all...just an hour. I was going berserk. It didn't help that the night before he was to leave to Baltimore our neighbor's car blew up.

However, trying to be positive again, I got to have lunch with Chase every day which could never happen if he had been working (he took the month of February off to study). Also, another perk was being introduced to Netflix and 30 Rock. I've never laughed so hard. I was also at liberty to watch as many chick flicks at my disposal after the kids went to bed. No more fighting over ESPN!! It really wasn't too bad. Chase definitely had the raw end of the deal. I am so proud of him for studying even when we would peek into his room for a little chat (we couldn't help ourselves sometimes:-).

We drove Chase to Baltimore on Monday and ended up swimming in his hotel's pool for a little while. It was Jack's first time in a pool and despite the unhappy face in the pictures, he actually had a great time splashing around. Sadie had a great time too. After everyone turned into raisins, we left Chase in his room to skim over his material one last time. In no time at all we were on our way back to Baltimore on Wednesday to pick him up. Another advantage to Maryland's bar is that it's a two day exam, not like California's three day "want to kill yourself" exam. We don't find out until the first week in May (torture) but until then we will dream of the summer to be had that was missed last year.

No garage...no problem!!

Saturday night (well I guess I should say Sunday morning) around 4 a.m. we were quite astonishingly awakened by a loud explosion. Upon awakening we thought at first one of the kids fell out of bed. Chase checked their rooms and came back to bed shrugging his shoulders. The kids were fine. Then we heard distant foot steps running and decided that something was terribly wrong. Who runs around at 4 a.m. So Chase went downstairs and after seeing a orange glow come through our front windows, looked out to see our neighbor's truck completely engulfed in flames. He came in and told me there was a fire and I immediately ran down stairs to check it out. I saw the fire and the first thing I thought of was my children. You never realize how vulnerable you become when you have little ones to protect. If the fire at the front of the car reached the back where the gas tank was, the whole neighborhood would be at risk. While Chase called the fire department I was on my knees the entire time repeating over and over again..."please protect my children, please protect my children." Our other neighbors called and warned us to get our kids to the back of the house because their bedrooms face the street. I raced upstairs to remove them and put them both in my bed.

My volcano loving Sadie was very excited about the fire and wanted to watch the whole thing, but after hearing another loud explosion, we decided to stay as far away from the windows in case they shattered. The fire department came very quickly and put the fire out and after nursing Jack, he went right back to sleep. Sadie, on the other hand, needed a little convincing that the fire wasn't going to come into her room and that the fire men would always protect us. A police man asked our distressed neighbor if he had any enemies to which he responded, "yes, but I don't think I have any enemies that would do this to me." The firemen investigated further and discovered a battery leak which caused the explosion and eventually lit the car on fire. I don't think I have ever been so scared (including the time the Manhattan hotel my mom and I were staying in caught on fire while on the 42nd floor...that was fun:-).

The weird thing is that John hadn't driven his car for a while. It had been sitting there for 14 hours. Strange that a car would just blow up at 4 a.m. after sitting dormant for the last 14 hours. John is a landlord of several properties and I've heard from his last tenants, he's a pretty lousy one. I have my suspicions, but in order to calm my motherly nerves, I like imagining a battery leak much more than a crazy terrorist lurking about our neighborhood. Although the alternative being that my car will just explode while driving around with my two children sends me into hysterics. I'm just glad we don't have a garage and I'm glad John didn't either.

Here's Sadie's version of the story.

We're not going anywhere:-(

Day 5 and we're still inside. The 50 mph winds have caused some serious white out conditions. It has snowed another 15 inches to top it all off. WE ARE SO BORED!!! I MISS YOU SAN DIEGO!!!

Cabin Fever!!

It's been four days now of being cooped up inside. We ventured out to Costco to stock up for the next storm. It's already snowing again. I wish I were a kid. I would have given up all my Strawberry Shortcake dolls for an entire week off from school. Now, I'm the mom and I'm trying to entertain a wiggly infant and a very rambunctious toddler. Now I know why they never canceled school in Utah...because there are so many kids!! Lucky for me, I only have two, although I am wishing Sadie was a twin right about now. We need a built in play mate around here:-)

What would you do?

What would you do if your daughter woke up every morning with one of these things sticking out of her nose. Would you try to pick it for her after you repeatedly tell her not to pick it herself.

What would you do if when you picked it, it bled and your daughter looked at you like you were Cruella Deville. Would you ignore it and let her go to preschool, church, play dates and ballet with a large booger coming out of her nose?
I've tried Neosporin and boy was that a mistake. Large pimples were the result from that remedy. I've doused it in Vaseline after it's been cleaned but it always comes back in the morning. The humidifier scares Sadie, but so does Miss Deville....so again...what would you do?

Self Dressed

Sadie has become so independent that she's determined to dress herself...ALL..by herself. I can't zip, button, comb, or tie anything unless she has a tantrum from not being able to first do it for herself. Her outfits usually consist of a pant, usually pink (mostly shants), a twirling skirt, and most often, a large Rosemary Beach t-shirt. Of course the outfit is always adorned with jewels. If she's not wearing this, then she's in her pajamas which she recycles about three times a day. If she goes to bed in a pair of pajamas, we can guarantee she'll come trotting into our room the next morning wearing a different pair. I love her "no photos please" pose.

Standing...

...with support of course. He's a little wobbly but has a pretty tight grasp. Now that he feels two feet taller, he's determined to grab and destroy everything!!

Hi

Snowed in

Making the best of being inside.
72 hours later...
we're a little bored

but it's not that bad.

SNOWMAGEDDON 2010

We were told this would be the biggest storm to hit Virginia since 1922. Heck, the governor of VA declared a snow emergency more than 12 hours before a single flake even fell. Most were off to buy supplies before the "snowpocalypse" dumped up to 30 inches. I wasn't too worried. I'm from Utah for heaven's sake. I can honestly tell my children that I walked a mile to school in feet of snow. School was never cancelled. In fact, I remember seeing my physics teacher with a pair of cross country skis heading down 9th south to East High. I was usually the only student there because I lived close enough to walk and I had a sturdy pair of Sorrel snow boots. Chase and I laughed at the crazy East Coasters for emptying the shelves at the grocery stores and filling up their bath tubs with water. Even the animals seemed a little worried.

I happened to stop by Whole Foods just because everyone was making me think I would be inside for the next 72 hours. The place was a zoo!! I've never seen anything like it. I heard on the news that evening that they ended up closing the doors because there were too many people.
It wasn't until the next morning that I realized this was way bigger than any Utah storm I had ever experienced. I couldn't believe how much snow we received. Alta and Snowbird would salivate at the sight of our streets, cars, and back yards!! We were fortunate to not be among the 100,000 or so people with out power (including Uncle Chris and his family in Maryland). We were also fortunate to live in an HOA because our roads were plowed every three hours. Chris told us that even if they wanted to go somewhere warm they couldn't have gotten out of their driveway, or up their street.

The main roads had so much packed snow that we took full advantage and hooked up the boogie board once again to the scooter for some more hookie bobbing:-) We weren't the only ones with the bright idea. Our neighbors pulled out their snowboards and sliced up and down the snowbanks behind a Jeep.

It was so much fun, we called the other Cannons to join us. It took them nearly an hour or more just to dig out their car.

I took us a while just to open our front door. Our neighbor couldn't get out of his. He ended up going out his back door and trudging through the snow up to his knees to get to his shovel by the front door.

Chase and I laughed at the fact that we dedicated most of the morning getting our scooter out and didn't even bother with the car. We also are pleased to announce that all the snow piled up around our shoveled out vehicles somewhat resembles a garage. We've always wanted one of those.

Everyone had cabin fever so we stayed outside as long as our cold toes would permit and headed indoors for some mac n' cheese and a little 101 Dalmations. We are supposed to get up to 20 more inches more in a few days and I already have plans for an igloo. We have that much snow!! SO..MUCH...FUN!!