February 21, 2005
President's Day
Snow Day - Today is President's Day. Officially the girls have school today, but because of the snow we're getting today, they have the day off. It started a couple of hours ago and we're expected to get 5 to 8 inches. Nothing major. It's just the timing that stinks. Michelle hates Monday morning snow storms because it cancels the step class she would otherwise teach. I never know where is a good place to put out our trash for pickup so that it doesn't get in the way of snow plows.
Weekend - We had a nice albeit cold week. I don't think it ever got above freezing. It helps balance out the 55°F temperatures we had earlier in the week. It's the law of averages I guess. We watched two older movies that were somewhat new to the girls. Abby didn't remember Monsters, Inc so we re-watched that one. Boo is so cute. Months ago Claire had seen Back to the Future so we rented the sequel (Part II). It's hard to believe the movie is 20 years old! Much of the movie projects 30 years into the future to the year 2015 and yet it applies already. They have a retro 80's bar and grill (which it would be now), the original Macintosh is considered an antique (it is!) and Michael Jackson is a novelty. OK, so we don't have flying cars or hovercraft skateboards...
We did a little bit of sledding on Sunday. The snow is rather stiff so it's not unlike sledding on ice. Claire and the boys also had some fun on the trampoline. I can tell this spring that the twins are really going to enjoy the trampoline. Last year they bounced a little but didn't catch much air. Watching them yesterday, I can tell that they now "get it". They looked like lil' Kangaroo doobees. Boing!
Sunday afternoon we drove the kids up to Manchester. We were thinking of taking them to Chuck E. Cheese, but the crowds and the wait were more than we wanted. We drove around a bit and found a nice McDonalds on 2nd street with a huge PlayPlace. It even had air hockey which the kids had never seen. Claire, Abby and Daniel loved playing it. Timothy laughed hysterically watching the puck ricochet from side to side. Michelle and I were glad to find the McD's because the kids were pretty let down when we bailed on going to Chuck E. Cheese.
I played a bit of Mario vs. DonkeyKong over the weekend. I had forgotten what a fun little game is is. Every once and a while it's good to remind yourself that amidst all the efforts to make the game platforms have more powerful rendering, in the end it still has to be a good game. Even though Mario vs DK is just a 2D game, it's a fun challenge. Abby enjoys it. Rather, Abby enjoys watching me play it. She's a couple of levels behind me and is having trouble advancing, but still wants to see what lies ahead. Last night after dinner she begged me to play some more just so she could watch and be my Gameboy consultant.
Basement - It looks like we're going to do this again! Deja vu! 6 years ago we had our basement finished in Nashua. Saturday we had a guy over, recommended by neighbors on down the street, to look over our existing bare basement and see what he thinks. This time Michelle doesn't want to do the whole thing, just the front half. She wants a couple of closets protruding into the back half, but otherwise wants to leave it bare for storage.
At first things looked constrained because the builder thought we had a typical bulkhead exit with the thin slanted doors that face the sky - like Dad and Mom have from their basement. Unless you have two full forms of egress, you can't have a bedroom in a basement. Local building code. When he later realized that our bulkhead exits with a full walkout door at ground level, he was relieved. "Oh! That's different!" From the outside it just looks like a back door. When you open it you realize it's stairs directly down into the basement. I guess not many houses in our neighborhood bothered with that. So we're clean and shouldn't have any problems with the local building inspector.
Michelle's plans are to have another family room on the garage side of the basement. She plans on having a hearth with a free standing wood pellet stove. We're already plumbed with a flue that goes up the chimney from the basement. The other side will be a guest bedroom, as it was in Nashua. Either room will be able to egress going up the stairs or out the full bulkhead exit.
Work should start within the next two months. I don't think it'll be done in time for the mid-April family visit.