Ice Storm 2009

This is the tree responsible for knocking out our power!

Kristin and I took lots of walks up and down the street....we had cabin fever!

This is a hole in the ice on our street...it's about three inches thick!

Our bush/tree laying on our back gate

Here is our street....

Kristin under the redbud tree...it only lost one small limb :)

It seems like every winter we have an "ice event" of some sort here in Northwest Arkansas, but this time, it was a major storm. Luckily our weatherman knew it was coming, so people were as prepared as they could be. Except for those last minute people who were at Wal-Mart and other grocery stores when the freezing rain started! Chris said it was a madhouse when he left at 4:00.

Monday afternoon we started having freezing drizzle and it continued overnight and all day Tuesday morning we had hard freezing rain with occasional sleet. Finally around 6 or so it switched over to light snow. We were without power for a few hours Tuesday and are fortunate that's been all. I think the fact that Siloam Springs owns their utilites makes getting power outages fixed quicker, since they only have to take care of Siloam. Needless to say school is out, so we have been just hanging out at the house. Our power outage was during the day, so we had light to see. We kept busy coloring, making clay figures, doing the dancing mat, playing Operation and just talking. Kristin and I went out a couple of times today just exploring. Trees and branches are down everywhere. My beautiful redbud tree only has one small limb down so I'm hoping it will be ok.

I have been keeping myself busy by doing some good cleaning...today I took everything out of the fridge and gave it a good scrub. I even took all the shelves out, put them in the sink and washed them down. Maybe tomorrow it will be the bedroom closet....

Kristin has her appointment with the ENT next Tuesday afternoon. She's been coughing a lot and is still running a fever off and on, so I'm anxious to get her to the doctor.

UPDATE 1/30/09

I went back to work today for part of the day...since school was out again, we didn't have many kids. I used the morning to do some cleaning, put out new work and get lesson plans ready for next week. Ice is falling all over the place...our playground looks like a warzone...as Kristin would say, "The town looks terrible!" There are still people without power in Siloam and some in other towns may not have power back for a month. Even though we were home most of the week, it seems like it has been the longest week ever!

Sick Again...

Well, once again, Kristin is sick. She woke up Friday morning with 102 temp and the first words out of her mouth were, "My ears hurt." So, I took her to work with me and got her an appointment for the doctor. I was certain she had another ear infection, but the doctor said her ears were just fine. Her tonsils, however, were and still are another story. They are HUGE and nasty. The doctor said that since they are so big they are causing her ears to hurt. She put Kristin on Zithromax, but said she'd probably keep running a low temp until we get the tonsils out. We looked at her chart and since Feb. 08, she'd been to the doctor 9 times with fever, earache and sore throat. We were referred to an ENT in Fayetteville and I'm going to call them in the morning to schedule an appointment. Kristin also has a high-rising epiglottis, which is also gross looking...it almost touches the back of her uvula...ick. That may or may not be causing her to have breathing problems at night and persistnet coughing while sleeping. Kristin is already getting nervous about going to the hospital, but I know she'll feel so much better when she gets those tonsils out. And on the bright side, we'll get our annual deductible met and out of the way at the beginning of the year...woo hoo, surgery for everyone!

Other than the tonsils, things are going well. Kristin got her report card, which was great. I still think her teacher is not doing all she should with Kristin, but luckily the year is almost over. I'm doing lots of phonics with her at home and she is so excited to be reading. At school they are still working on letter name and sound recognition, which she already knows, but sometimes has to take a minute to think about, and they don't want her to have to do that. It's so frustrating! But she has made a lot of positive progress...she loves math (does not get that from me!) and PE is her favorite class (that's not from me, either). She's going to start seeing a counselor at school for her anxiety and ADHD. It is through Ozark Guidance, a place here in town that works in conjunction with the schools. They thought they would not get her in before school was out, but the school counselor has kept on them and apparently has gotten things going. I have to call him tomorrow, too. Next week they are going to the Walton Arts Center in Fayetteville to see Stellaluna...she is very excited about it.

We had a great Christmas in Cabot and I'll post pictures eventually!