Snowy Days and Superbowl Saga

Here's the view out of our front door on Superbowl Sunday. It's been so much fun lately. The average snowfall for January over the last 30 years in is 4.2 inches. This January we had 11.5! This has some definite advantages:
I have learned how to drive in the snow with relative ease; have mastered the art of bundling up for recess treks outside (Key #1: You just can't care how you look); and we had a snowday last Wednesday (No SCHOOL!). Jake loves it- especially "ice skating" on the icy sidewalks. Tanner, on the other hand, always likes the IDEA of the snow, wanting to be bundled up, but once he steps outside and (god forbid) actually feels the stuff on his hands he cries and wants inside again.


Here's a picture of Jake taking a snowmobile ride with our neighbor Greg around the block- another clear indication of the amount of snow we have here this year. Greg likes his toys and it was either this, a boat, or a motorcycle. I personally was rooting for the boat, hoping to get a few lake trips in with their family this summer, but the gigantic snowmobile won out.

The Superbowl build up around our house was BIG. Jake watched most of the playoffs and was really excited to see "his" team make it to the big day. He has been practicing routes (or as Jake calls them.... "fades") in our living room for weeks with Brian and Tanner. We were all hoping to see New England go 19-0. We greeted the event with a multitude of fattening snacks, a sign made by Brian and Jake, and high hopes. We also greeted the event with NO NAP- not for Jake and not for Tanner. Tanner fell apart at around kickoff, so I spent most of the game chasing after him as he: hit his sister, drew with sharpie on my desk, dumped cups full of water out of the bathtub onto the floor, and generally was just a gigantic pain in the butt. Faith practiced walking- holding onto her push truck- and rolled around the floor charming both her dad and me with her full face grin and giggles.


Jake held out until the 3rd quarter then actually told us he was ready to go to bed, but made sure we set up the DVR to record the rest of the game. After putting the boys to bed, Brian and I settled in to watch the recording of the fourth quarter and that's when it got interesting. With 25 seconds left to go, the recording stopped. Apparently the DVR thought the game was over so it just stopped. We were left wondering who won, knowing that it was probably NY but hoping against hope that it was the Patriots. (No, it's not that we are that big of NE fans, but neither one of us wanted to break the news to Jake in the AM that his team had lost.). So, after uttering some choice curse words Brian went to check the final score and get details of the final 25 seconds online.

To his credit, Jake handled the loss well. When Brian told him he said, "DOH!" (Very similar in inflection to Homer Simpson) and let it go. He was just excited to watch the end of the game.
We warned him that we hadn't gotten the last 25 seconds, but he was relatively OK with that news, too. But when we went to play the recording for him before breakfast it turned out that Brian, in his annoyance/anger/frustration over missing the last 25 seconds- had accidentally ERASED the entire 4th quarter. So, not only did Jake's team lose, he didn't even get to see the end of the game. There were a few quiet tears, but he managed to buck up, put on his Patriots jersey anyway, and head to school with me to face the music from his peers and teachers (most of whom were rooting for the Giants).

Better luck next year.