Kathryn and her gal pals are headed to the Virgin Islands for a week of sun, snorkeling, reading, napping and relaxing.  They are all packed and head out at 3am in the morning.  Eric and I will be bachelors for a week.  Most nights are full – we are planning on going out to eat Wed night for our friend Bob’s birthday, Thursday night we will go swimming, Friday is open.  This weekend we are going to Schoharie and got invited to my sisters for a celebration of my nephew’s birthday – a real plus as Eric can play with his cousin Nathan.  Next week we will go swimming on Monday, my other sister is planning a visit for Tuesday night, Wednesday night is guys night out at the diner and Thursday is swim night.  Friday AM K will be home.   Tuesday and Thursdays Eric will be at pre-school and the other days he will be at his buddy Trevor’s or at the baby sitters.  Stay tuned………

My nephew’s daughter has been raising Boer goats, a meat goat, and expecting some young kids.  She has three total new births now and here is a picture of the 1st – Little Miss Snowflake.

I heard Click and Clack’s Car Talk show and was intrigued by their discussion of Car Practical Jokes.  They discussed one where a co-worker secretly kept filling another co-worker’s gas tank – completely disrupting their car mileage computations.  It prompted me to send in a story. 

Some number of years ago my co-workers and I installed two jacks under the rear end of a co-worker’s car, lifting “Steve’s” car marginally so the rear tires were minutely removed from contact with the ground. 

We faked a call from a customer giving an important demonstration by saying the software program wasn’t working and “Steve” needed to come over right away to fix the problem. 

“Steve” raced to his car, started it, put it in Drive and mashed his foot on the gas pedal only to have the car race in place.  We were watching from an office window as he put the car back into Park and repeated the sequence, abet a more carefully.  After the 2^nd attempt to leave he exited the car and began a walk around finally spotting the elevated tires and co-workers laughing hysterically.  

 Ed & family joined us for lunch, conversation and games on Sunday.

Over the past 24 hours we received 18″ of snow on top of all the previous lake effect snows. This was one of those shovel & plow twice days, just to keep ahead of the accumulating snow. You can see our snow is starting to add up. Look at the snow piled around our 4′ 3-board fence.

We went out and played on the snow piles before dinner. We have some 8′ piles where the snow has been plowed from the driveway. I took this picture at the end of our driveway looking at part of the snow pile – 4 year old child is shown for purposes of scale.

The snow piles are good for games of King of the Mountain and short, but fast, sled rides. Here Eric takes a ride as it is getting dark – the flash shows that it is still snowing.

Saturday I spent a couple hours shovelling snow around the deck, mailbox, oil tank access and paths for the dog to access the lawn. Kathryn took Eric grocery shopping and got Billy, Billie Jo and Dakota for Dakota’s year 2 birthday celebration. Below Dakota debates what to do with her candle.

Eric and Dakota work at puzzles on Dakota’s new play table.

Saturday evening we went to Brad Bennett’s 50th birthday party and caught up with a number of people we hadn’t seen in a while. Sunday Kathryn and I went to the SU vs. Saint John’s basketball game (SU 76-74).

There was light snow in the air when I awoke the other morning causing a nice snow bow with the sunrise.