Snow

Bronte & Chris Visit

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Last month my sister Bronte and her lovely boyfriend Chris came to visit with us over my birthday and Thanksgiving. The November weather up until their visit had been fairly mild until the night we needed to collect them when we had a big snow storm. It didn’t start until we left the house (naturally) and it dumped down, we got delayed 4 and a half hours, stuck in traffic whilst the snow flurried down, passing cars stranded along the highway (including one with a man dressed in shorts digging his car out). I was pretty worried my sister and Chris would have been waiting for us for all that time but luckily (or not…?) they got delayed for just as long stuck on the runway in London and New York, by coincidence we both arrived at the airport at exactly the same time!

We didn’t get back to our house in Connecticut until about 4am and we had to dig a channel through the snow in the driveway to get the car in – needless to say we slept in pretty late! In the morning we introduced our guests to IHOP and some shops and ended up at Dave & Busters a big arcade.

That evening Chris and Bronte got to meet some of Kim’s family and we went to hibachi for Japanese (more sake, more sexy).

The next day was my 30th birthday, I got a ton of lovely gifts from everyone but I couldn’t stop too long because we started our road trip that day and headed through upstate New York on the way to Niagara. I had a not very fancy birthday lunch of pizza by the slice.

When we got through the Canadian border we got to our hotel which Bronte and Chris had upgraded as a treat for my birthday and our room over looked Niagara Falls, we could see all of the mist rising up.

And my Mum paid for us to all have a nice fancy dinner over looking the falls.

Where weirdly enough they had a fireworks contest that night so we got to see a really long fireworks show as we ate which was cool.

The next day it wasn’t too cold out so we were feeling strong about going on the last boat that was still open this time of year on the falls.

We lined up and got our highly fashionable waterproof ponchos on, Bronte and Chris laughed at Kim and I tying ours up tightly around our faces and tucking everything in, when the barriers opened we all decided we’d stand up top at the front of the boat because we could take a little mist.

We sailed past the American Bridal Falls with no issue, a tiny bit of spray and we all got photos. Then we rounded on the Canadian Horseshoe Falls and got hammered with water, we were soaked, the water got so heavy we all raced downstairs with everyone else to shelter, until I realised half way I’d lost Bronte. Before we set off for the day my Mum had made me promise not to let my sister (who is legendarily clumsy) fall over board so I went back up to find her and she was standing alone, shocked with her arms out dripping with water… oh Bronte. They completely understood why Kim and I tied up our ponchos so tight.

Taming Of The Shrew

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Last week we got 11 inches of snow and it was about -20 C… not fun. However, I did get two snow days off of work so that made shoveling the driveway less laborious because after instead of having to go to work I got to hibernate inside.

Unfortunately we weren’t the only ones feeling the cold because we noticed some mice must have come into our house through a gap in a kitchen cupboard. We inspected and sure enough they’d nibbled through an entire packet of Kim’s sweets. The kitties were extremely interested and began patrols at once.

Kim’s had a bad cold and has been feeling rotten so we stocked up on the cold meds. Did a spot of reading whilst waiting in line.

All the lake has been frozen over and we have been at the mercy of the snow ploughs although thankfully they’ve been good to us and not taken out our mailbox.

So whilst the snow has walled us in the house I had ordered some wire wool and expanding foam to keep the mice out… when Mr Barclay cat manages to catch a live shrew inside our house next to our boiler which I then had to attempt to rescue and put outside (only it was pretty stunned so I think it probably died anyway!). Since the shrew was captured the cat’s haven’t been patrolling as much and there aren’t anymore signs of life.

All the same, I have been hunting out all the possible gaps in the house, including this horrible area next to our boiler we’ve never really investigated which was full of tiny gaps (one presumes straight through to the crawl space?).

I found all sorts down there, bricks, bits of plaster, an ear plug, a receipt from a liquor store and bits of newspaper from 1982 (which, from the quantity of crap I found in the gap, makes sense to be the last date it was cleaned!).

And underneath all the rubbish some pretty sizable gaps.

So that’s been my thrilling January so far, taking down Christmas stuff, freezing, rescuing half dead shrews and then blocking them out. Fun times. The upside to the cold weather is that we’ve really been getting our moneys worth from our Movie Passes and been to the movies a lot. Next week I start my new job role (at the same company) and going up to 40 hours so that’ll be good… hopefully no more snow for just now.

Snow Comes To Coventry

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So this Saturday we were all geared up to take a trip to New York City until we woke up to…

There was about 3 or 4 inches in the end, we took a little walk down to the lake which was all chilly.

We took the cats out for a little exploration.

They didn’t stay out long…

Kim’s cat bunny acted like we were torturing her and hid under the steps in our garden.

We’ve been getting ready for Christmas, I’ve done two secret Santa’s and a grab bag for work so far. I hadn’t done a grab bag before, you buy a random gift and wrap it and take it there then when you’re ready everyone picks a number. When your number is called you pick a gift and unwrap it then you choose whether to keep it or steal a gift that someone else before you has unwrapped. After the last person goes the first person gets to choose to steal or keep their gift so getting number 1 is the best. I wasn’t sure what to take so I got a bag of miniatures (which the Americans call ‘nippers’).

Kim’s Auntie Linda sent us a wreath she made in the post which was nice and it lights up, that side of Kim’s family is very good with crafts. She also sent this little candle thing which wizzed round and is very fun to fiddle with.

We’ve set up the fish tank all ready for our new arrivals. I just labelled the Christmas cards so hopefully they’ll get to the UK in time, we got some of those cheesy photo cards the Americans love because I think they’re funny. I only have a few more presents to buy so that’s a relief!