Olivia's First Blizzard

Okay... so maybe it wasn't a blizzard by U.P. standards, but all our downstate friends would have been panic stricken over the 12-ish inches of snow we got yesterday. I took Abby out to shovel it while Olivia napped. We didn't get much shoveling done. Mostly I spent my time putting mittens back on and making paths for Abby to walk in, since 12 inches of snow is a little much for a girl of her size. I only got the snow plow residue shoveled up along the road and the sidewalk to the front door before we had to quit. Steve had the hard job of finishing the driveway when he got home.

Olivia is feeling much better. She's finished her antibiotics and no longer has a fever or excessive crying. She still has a pretty bad cold and has been throwing up the snot she has been swallowing, but even that has been much improved from earlier this week. Abby has also been showing some cold symptoms, so we are hoping she is feeling better soon too. We have way to much celebrating to do this month. And that celebrating starts with a trip to St. Ignace on Sunday for a party at the home of Dr. & Mrs. Krantz - the newest dentist who works for the tribe in their St. Ignace office. I'm hoping the girls will be feeling well so we can all go.

And, life around here should be slowly resuming normalcy since Kimberlee and Ryan brought baby Felecia home today from the NICU. We are very excited to meet her once the girls are feeling well again. So I will be back to just my kids and the occasional visit of my other kids. Not that we don't love having them around - I just don't have the energy to deal with 7 kids. I don't know how my mother survived it. I'm still exhausted just thinking about taking care of that many children.

We are hoping that we won't have too much more snow this weekend. We have been scoping out new snow blowers this evening since the 30+ year old hand-me-down machine we have is pretty well past it's prime (and I can't start it so I'm no help with it around - or I should say I couldn't start it and Steve wasn't around to show me the trick). Steve and I are pretty sore from hand shoveling - it was not fun with heavy, wet snow.