Although we've had some really cold spells this winter where the temperatures have been close to zero degrees, in general this winter has been very mild. Considering I'm not a fan of cold weather, I've been thankful that the temperatures have often been a little warmer than usual. We also haven't had much snow this winter. Yesterday morning I awoke to discover a winter wonderland outside. I typically walk five miles every day, and I've been enjoying seeing and hearing more birds lately during my walks. During my first walk yesterday, the sun was still coming up, and the sky was incredibly gorgeous. The evergreen trees weren't completely covered in snow, but every other tree and plant was completely coated in snow. It was so incredibly beautiful! I wish I had used my camera to take some photos at the start of my walk, but at least I snapped a couple of pictures with my phone in the middle of my walk after the sky had turned blue.
Our school district had a two-hour delay yesterday, but we didn't have a delay in our home because I had invited nine other children to come to our home to play board games from 1-4pm. Another mom hosted a game day for eight children on February 24. That time the kids played Azul, Ticket to Ride, Sequence, and Chess. I liked the idea so much that I decided to do the same. She had divided the kids into two groups of four. I opted to divide the kids into two groups of six. I put some games on each table that six people could play, and I also put one game for two people (Mastermind and Hnefatafl) and one for four people at each table if the groups wanted to split into smaller groups. I also had all twelve kids play Guesstures together (similar to charades). One mom sent a bag of chips and a bag of homemade cookies. Despite the fact that all the kids had eaten lunch prior to game day, they consumed those plus the two bags of pretzels that I provided. At the game day last month Nadia was the only girl; yesterday there were four girls and eight boys in attendance ranging in age from nine (Isaiah) to fifteen (Ben). One mom stayed during game day, and we were able to chat a little bit. Two of the moms mentioned that they will host a game day at their home in the near future.
We began our fourth quarter of school last week. Ian is studying Python (coding) instead of science this quarter. Last week we finished the fourth and final Life of Fred grammar book. Tomorrow Ian and Nadia will finish the Life of Fred Beginning Algebra book. Because Nadia had almost reached the goal that I had set for her for the school year in Spanish on Duolingo, she has switched to working on French every day. She is trying to get to the same point in the French course that she is in Spanish. In Biology Nadia will be doing her first dissection this week - an earthworm. We're currently listening to Henry V during the time we usually study history. Speaking of Shakespeare, we have tickets to see a performance of Julius Caesar on Sunday night.
On March 3, two men installed a new range in our kitchen. We had to hire a contractor for the task because they needed to cut the countertop and cabinets some to make room for the oven. I was not at all impressed with the quality of their work. I don't ever plan to hire them again, but all of the burners work on my new oven, which wasn't the case with my old one for the past nine months or so. I wasn't able to get a white one so it doesn't exactly "match" the dishwasher, microwave, and refrigerator, but it has some features my 24-year-old oven didn't have such as a griddle that can be put on the range, the oven can be split into two different ovens which I anticipate using when I need to bake/cook things at two different temperatures at the same time, the oven can be used as an air fryer (something I've never used before), the oven can be controlled by an app on a phone (I can turn the oven on to start cooking something while I'm at church on a Sunday morning), etc. We also got an estimate on replacing our sliding glass door in the kitchen, but that's not going to happen because it was for a little over $6K! I would never have dreamt one door could cost that much! We'll just keep using the one we have. I'm thankful that we were able to replace the oven because it was definitely challenging at times to cook when I only had one large burner I could use. My new range has five burners, and they all work!
