Sled-gineering

 A month or so ago when Dallas was frigid and snowy, we were super excited to go sledding in our own neighborhood.  We had been storing a plastic sled for years for just such an occasion.  When an 1/8" of snow/ice covered the streets, we headed over to a neighbor's house and started sledding.  

Sledding commences, Sunday Feb. 14th 2021

All went well for a several hours until at the end of the day, our sled cracked into pieces!  What could we do.  Well, first I tried a epoxy and fiberglass repair, but I forgot to rough-up the plastic first (and didn't have plastic epoxy at home).  That repair didn't last long.  So what now?  A trash can lid?

That wasn't very comfortable...let's build our own sleds!  I searched the internet and found a pretty simple design.  This was our first prototype, which we named "The Belly Flop".  The next day, the kids designed their own sleds.  

Norah went for a toboggan style, she named "The Super Sledder".

Jackson went for an agile design, which he proudly named "The Pink Diaper" since it was made out of an old pink pull-ups box.

The Super Sledder (Norah), The Belly Flop (Will) and The Pink Diaper (Jackson)

Norah made a cardboard "oar"

The sleds worked really well on our neighbor's driveway and enabled days of sledding fun (who could have imagined we'd have nearly a week of sledding days in a row!).  The sleds didn't work so well on the longer, gentler slopes around the neighborhood though.

Friday Feb. 19, 2021 the snow melts

 

Connecting dots

 Jackson and Norah are going to JCC camp this week. Both of them love the camp experience. 

After they came home the first day,

Mommy: How many kids are in your pod?

Jackson: 13.

Norah: I don't know.

Jackson: I think its 10 because I counted when her class was lined up for pickup. 

In the night, camp coordinator sent each parent a message updating us about Norah's dance camp. I checked the recipient list and counted 10 parents. I also saw a familiar name belongs to Will's high school friend Rae. 

Will reached out and turned out both Rae's kids go to Norah's dance camp. We exchanged that information with the kids. 

A few hours later,

Mommy: Oh, I found out how many kids are on Norah's camp. I counted 10 parents on the email so there are 10 kids.

Jackson (immediately): No, 11.

Mommy: 😳 ... Yes, you are right.

He is good at connecting dots!

How many things are wrong in this picture? :-)

Temporary insulation during Snowvid

 As the temperatures remained frigid and the power went out, we started looking for ways to temporarily improve the insulation of the house.  In the end, I think the power returned often enough that these didn't make much difference, but we were preparing for the power to be out for days.

First, however, a few notes on things we could have done but didn't think of until later.

1. Block the dryer vent, preferably from the outside.  It's basically a hole for cold air into the house.
2. Block the stove exhaust vent, also preferably from the outside. 
3. Block the fireplace opening (when not in use)

Scrap foam filled the stairwell windows.  These have easy access and we removed them when they were in the sun for free solar heating.

Our temperature gun indicated that we were losing a lot of heat through our solid wood front door (it measured about 25 degrees F colder than our walls).  We covered the door with cardboard and sealed the gaps with gaffer tape.  We experimented with aluminum foil to enhance the insulation, but our temperature gun seems to misread temperatures on shiny surfaces, so the results were inconclusive. We also filled the adjacent windows with random scraps.

Temporary curtains, tape and towels on our French doors

This wall next to the fireplace is always cold in the winter and warm in the summer.  Some kind of draft runs through it, but I'm not sure how or why.  I suspect the fireplace is somehow responsible.  We stuffed the shelves with pillows and raised the surface temperature facing the room about 10 degrees F.

I originally cut these sheets of foam a couple years ago to try to warm-up our bathroom in the winter.  It didn't help much then, but I pulled them out for this situation.  Someday, we should get curtains here :-)

Norah's growth spurt

In two months, Norah grew from 43 to 44 inches tall. We measured and measured. It's confirmed she hit a growth spurt!

Hoo's there? -- Your neighbor owl.

Last night near sunset I heard close hooting sounds by the window. We know we have owls live in the nearby trees. Jackson even picked up their feathers in the past. But we never got a chance to see them or photograph them. 

This time there were two owls hooting to each other. I've never heard so complicated hoo hoohoo sounds before. I imagined the dialog was like "Are we going out tonight? No, honey. We still have winter damage on our house and I need to call a plumber. etc..." Those two were talking right in front of our house and all of us saw the owls. I even caught one on camera. He is so cute!

Surviving Snowvid

On Friday Feb 12, Will suggested to stock up to be prepared for the weather. It's the kids' winter holiday and CNY so I took the day off. I went midday but was surprised at the traffic at Super Target. In my mind, it was just a colder cold front. I was so glad I stocked for more than a week of food as times goes on.

We had to take days off work after we lost internet on Wednesday. Life slowed down when there was no electricity, no internet and snowed in. Will concentrated on insulating the house every possible crack and surface. We watched our house temp drop to the 40es after 6 hours of power outage and lived in the fear of bursting pipes. 

I rediscovered my old hobby that doesn't count on internet and electricity like reading a paper book, photographing the snow, or just playing in the snow.

Jackson and Norah loved the days off and the time with snow. And now we proudly survived the Snowvid 2021.

Texas snowplows

Snow Angels 

Snowball fight

Sledding on a trashcan lid

Finnish Ice Candle

Fireplace was the only source heat for a couple of nights

Lake was so beautiful

We checked and made sure peacocks were okay

Managed to capture the fleeting crystals on my car

Jackson helped our neighbors build a snow fort that was so strong it didn't fall over when Jackson ran into it.

What are we doing lately?

 I noticed that our blog is a little bare lately. So what were we doing the last two months?

We made cookies!

We picked pecans.

We made picture frame

And paint it to the right color

Norah started skate boarding

We did a ton of at home learning

Jackson's at home learning corner

We did a few gingerbread houses

We had peacocks visiting our house

We started to build an outdoor table from scrap fence posts

I got into baking

I got obsessed with food photography

Our table finally finished! 

Will build a slack line. We got into balancing!