Decemberrrrrr

It has been quite a week around here with the crazy weather. After three snow days in a row, my school finally opened back up. I wasn't overally jazzed to go back as I had gotten into the vacation mindset a little early as a result of being home with the kids all week. Well, their school was still closed and so DH stayed home with them. The drive in was fairly uneventful, though the roads were a little slick. I got to work at about 7:30. I made a few preparations for my classes, but really lacked motivation to do much else. My coworkers seemed to share my lethargy and we all just stared out the window as the snow began to fall. School progressed as usual.

The second graders came and went. It was really fun lesson actually. We read The Polar Express as I'd always wanted to do so and they seemed to enjoy it. Then inside of paper trains, they wrote sentences about the beginning, middle, and ending of the story. When they finish, they'll connect their trains and we'll post them on the wall. I thought it was a creative way to learn these story components...but I digress.

Anyway, we then stood in the stairwell as the first graders began to gather for their class. My parent volunteer arrived and I was in the middle of marveling at her commitment to coming in despite the weather...when the first grade Spanish teacher announced that they were closing the school due to the worsening weather conditions. Since our school is located on a hill, they are very careful and cautious. We were all pretty surprised and unsure of how to proceed. This was a very uncommon practice for the school to do such a thing midday. The school either opens or closes, it doesn't do things halfway. We all got on the horn and began assisting the Kinder and Pre-K teachers with making phone calls to parents to come get their kids. I loaded up my stuff and began the dangerous descent down the slushy hill. By a little after 11:oo, I was on my way back home.

Since the roads still weren't too bad and the sun was peeking out behind the clouds, I opted to run a few errands. I also managed to get some Christmas shopping done, which seems to be an neverending process. DH's mother stopped over to bring a sled she had bought for the kids and invited us out to lunch, her treat. While I was at work, DH had taken the kids out on the sled, so that was fun for them. We are supposed to get more snow and ice this weekend, the last big snowstorm for a little while anyway, so I wanna get out there with them (more photo ops too!). As I type this, it appears that school will be open for both the kids and I tomorrow. One whole day of school this week for them and then their real vacation starts. It almost seems pointless to go in as they will likely just be playing games and such, but N is looking forward to it so I guess that's good. K wants to stay home with me, which I would love to do. We'll see if the early morning changes things.

UPDATE: At the last possible minute, they decided to close our district schools and also the private school where I teach. It was a good thing we hadn't left yet as I got the phone call just about fifteen minutes before we were set to leave. DH had to report to work as usual though. The only downside is that it is still dark outside and we are wide awake. To make good use of our time, we decided to decorate some of the cookies we made last night. Woohoo! We are officially on vacation!