Snow daze

• Well, the last few weeks have been a blur.  Perhaps it is getting used to a new baby, perhaps it is the general busy-ness of life now, or perhaps it was the flu.  I'm going with the flu.  3 weeks back Zoe got sick.  Started with some throwing up that I was able to catch most of in my fingers... she rapidly progressed to become very handy with the barf bowl.  I was quite proud of her in a grateful sort of way.  A few rough days after that and she eventually got better.  Which was just in time for Adia to start up.  I caught most of her vomit in towels.... we did lots of laundry that night... and 4 baths.  She added some fatigue and diarrhea to the disease and stretched it out a few more days than Zoe.  I assume she was trying to outdo her big sis.  Luckily the disease just got worse as it claimed more victims.  (I have no idea why this is underlined, it is not me)  Its now a week and a half into it and Ash comes down with it.  Won't go into details except to say that I then got it much worse... than anyone.  It was a mild form of death... with all the pain and none of the peace.  I described it to my sister like this:  I was reminded of growing up Lutheran... I was either sitting or kneeling purging myself of sin.  And the back and forth nature of it all really brought the past back (sit, kneel, sit, kneel, sit, kn...uh oh sit again!)  Yeah, good times.  Then there was the day of laying on the couch with my down jacket on and as many blankets as I could find.... Lutheranism came back each night for a few nights and the fatigue was pretty amazing, but it gradually left.  Just in time for the snow:)  All that praying did pay off, however - Ashley protected Esme and she never got it.  Thank you, whoever you are.
  

• But I should set the stage... because I was an idiot.. but it worked out really well for me.  We had saturday school (which we have now if we miss any days) and Ash wanted to get to Greenville for a week to be with Maw Maw and Jan had just had knee replacement - AND there was some snow coming, so I might have a snow day.  No problem.  Well as Sunday went on, it looked like the snow was going to hit Greenville and not Boone.  This made me freak out for no reason - I thought we might have school monday and that I'd better get back to Boone before the interstate got nasty and a 3 hr drive took 6 hrs.  So off I went.  At that time the prediction was 1-3 inches - which often meant nothing.  As I got to Lenoir, the emergency system came on the radio to say the winter weather watch was now a warning for Boone.  Expect 8-10 inches. (it turned out to be 12) Sheesh.  Not only would there be no school, but it would be days.  I made it home in nasty conditions and ate dinner and turned around and was going to head back to Greenville so Ash wasn't left with all the kids all week.  I made it back to Blowing Rock and the roads were ok but there was a lot of snow down.  I called Ash and she convinced me not to be stupid.. again.  I was going to ignore it and continue anyway, but then she pulled a low blow - she said "why not just go snowboarding tomorrow"  Ouch.  I caved.  
  
• I made it back home and called Dave and we had an absolute epic day at Sugar Mountain.   It turned into a great group - Dave, Russ, Todd, Corrie, and a couple of other climbing buddies of theirs.  Most of them were freeheelers, but we won't hold that against them.  (Russ, I need to get my Peanut Butter back.. or at least the spoon!:)  First run Dave plows off the mountain down something awfully steep and I followed the best I could.  It was the first time I ever made a turn and got a face full of snow.  Glorious.  So soft and cushy.  I was absolutely exhausted by the end of the day.... the most fun I've ever had snowboarding.  And it was really great to hang out with Dave again as well.  Cross training.
  

• In other news, the snow caved in my poor chicken aviary, but the chickens seem to not mind.  Now instead of one big space, they have rooms and passageways.  I think the snow bent the steel T-bars.  We'll see when it thaws out a bit.  
• Jon and I went to Damascus today and had a really good time planning out how to divert the graywater to the garden and where to orient the wood cookstove.  Everything is coming together in a really exciting way.  By putting the cookstove in the garage (playroom), it can hook easily into the water system (80 gal tank and 20 gal reservoir), still contribute a lot of heat to the house, heat the playroom, and at 700 lbs, be easy to install:)  Exciting.  But mostly is was great to just hang out again with Jon.  If that guy doesn't write an autobiography, it will be humanity's loss.  Summer approaches and the dream of Damascus gets closer.  
  
• Today, I got a text from my old roommate teammate Brian.  It said "3:41 marathon. done!" The last time I saw him was right after Ironman - we stopped by for a night on our way back.  He told me that I inspired him to do it.  We were always ying and yang - he was fastest on the team and I was slowest (at least in any distance) - and like I've told everyone, "If I can do it.... anyone can"  I believe that.  But I am proud of him.  
• Iron Reid is in Arizona right now at Diabetes Training Camp.  He is becoming a machine.  I can't wait to hear what his experience of DTC was and whether it changed his life, too.  OK, I've had 3 days off and need to do some grading:)  Goodnight.