Well, it's been about five weeks since anyone here has been sick, so I guess we were due. Quinn's showing what appears to be flu type symptoms. So he's not feeling too good at all right now. Catherine's also coughing a bit, but doesn't seem to be getting to the point of what Quinn has, but we'll probably know whether she's going to get out of this one unscathed by tomorrow. I suppose we should have seen this coming because in retrospect it makes a lot of sense now why Quinn wanted to leave ice skating early yesterday, he was probably feeling the initial onset of the bug.
Once we knew he had the flu, I stopped by the store thinking I could buy Tamiflu, but found out at the store that you need a prescription for it (D'oh!). I'm really hoping I don't get this, but I'm been more tired than usual, so I'm probably a carrier if nothing else. Since I couldn't buy the Tamiflu, I ended up getting something over the counter called Airborne. I was surprised, I was expecting the stuff to taste like complete crap, but the lemon-lime version is actually not too bad.
And it wouldn't be the flu unless there was at least one throw up incident. He's only thrown up the one time so far, so that's good I suppose. The bad part is it was right after "dinner" and in his bed, because anywhere else might have been simpler to clean up. And I quoted dinner since he really didn't eat anything and was just clingy with Ginger throughout dinner.
Quinn getting all this extra attention means that Catherine has been really jealous. She was basically acting out trying to get attention from the moment I got home. She still has trouble with the whole concept that she doesn't get all the attention when someone else is sick. Since Ginger was comforting Quinn during dinner, I tried to entertain Catherine and make her realize that we still loved her even though she wasn't getting all the attention from us.
Quinn had ice skating today. Normally there would be pictures, but no camera was taken to the event. And I don't know if it's because he was overly tired or what, but Quinn didn't really want to be there and ended up leaving a bit early today. From Ginger's report both kids were really tired most of the day, so they both got put to bed earlier than usual. Hopefully that will help with their attitudes tomorrow.
I watched The Illusionist the other night. It gets an overall passing grade. I'm not sure how to describe it other than a period piece based mystery story with a touch of fantasy (the illusions if you will). The movie itself is nothing spectacular, and you can easily see the ending coming from a mile away. There are no real surprises in the movie (at least there weren't for me). Jessica Biel once again proves to me that her acting, if you can call it that, should be limited to movies like the stuff she did in Blade where actual acting isn't required. Edward Norton just seems to phoning this in, but at the same time, for reasons I'll get into a bit later, they really don't want to focus on his character too much. Paul Giamatti on the other hand turns in a really good performance as the conflicted Inspector Uhl. In fact, I wouldn't have minded had the story focused much more on him than it did. His character is wonderfully written as existing at the crossroad between two worlds, that of his roots with the common people where he originated and that of the aristocracy which has tenuously accepted him and he is now suppose to serve without question. The moral dilemma that he endures through this movie should have been the story I believe. Instead we get some theatrics with illusions and a botched love story. I think part of my problem with this movie is that it never really settles on a point of view. Initially it looks like the story will be told from Uhl's perspective, but then there are some scenes where he's not involved at all, which looking back I see was required to drive the plot. But this whole movie is suppose to be mysterious, and it's Uhl's that is suppose to be deciphering the mystery, so the scenes without him are terse and uninformative and are only there to give the rest of us some clue as to what's occurring. Perhaps it's that reason for my belief that these are not strong performances by Norton or Biel, it could be they just weren't allowed the chance to convey their characters. The other thing about this movie that I didn't like was that it makes use of flashback storytelling. It starts out with this dramatic scene, and then before it gets resolved it flashes back in the story to tell what led to that point. Never been a fan of stories that use that device because initially you're jut thrown into the story with no basis, so you can't determine whether the actions being taken make sense. And they're presented in such an out of context way as to evoke your natural tendency to empathize with the side you think is right, even though you know nothing of the actions that brought them to this point. Overall it's not a bad movie, but there are certain aspects and ramifications of the ending that I didn't really like.
And since I only showed pictures of the kids in the snow for the past couple of days, how about some pictures of the snow itself.
I came home early today. I figured with the rising temperatures it doesn't look like the snow will be around tomorrow so if I was going to get outside for sledding with the kids it would have to be today. I base this assessment on the fact that both snowmen we made yesterday had already melted to the point where they collapsed this afternoon. And based on how much snow melted today with the temperature in the 40s, I can only imagine how much will melt tomorrow when temperatures are suppose to hit somewhere in the 50s.
Unfortunately today is Catherine's ballet lessons, so she couldn't stay and go out for sledding, but Quinn and I were able to play around outside for a bit. We started by trying to rebuild the two snowmen that had collapsed from heat exhaustion. I was able to put the big one somewhat back together, but Quinn didn't get to far into getting the small guy back up again. I don't think it was helping that he was trying to build it using a plastic toy shovel.
Then we went around back for some sledding. With the snow as wet as it was from melting, the sledding conditions were far from ideal. I've noticed that packing snow is typically only good for sledding initially and subsequent days just aren't as good. And you have to remember the snow had been rained on the day before and melted a fair amount today. Overall it was fine, you just couldn't get a lot of speed on the runs (which from one point of view was good because it meant I didn't have to worry about Quinn running into a tree as he went down solo).
The hill itself was fine for the most part, but the bottom of the hill was very slushy. I think we destroyed some of the ground as we walked up the hill between runs as I noticed that when we would slide walking up the hill we went through the snow, the grass and all the way into the dirt sometimes.
While we were around back, Quinn showed me how to make frog footprints in the snow using your hands. I don't know who taught him that, because it wasn't me.
And this shot basically proves anything looks good with the proper lighting conditions.
Wow. That was a lot of snow that came basically out of nowhere. No forecast about snow or anything. The only thing we got were some warnings about freezing rain and then it was suppose to simply turn to rain later in the night. What we ended up getting was a lot of snow all morning and for a bit of the afternoon. And it was coming down in huge flakes too. The entire time it was snowing the weather forecasters kept coming on telling us how we were just going to get freezing rain (you would think after five hours of it snowing they would catch a clue, but they didn't). I'll go ahead and apologize in advance for all the pictures I'm about to post. It's a lot of pictures today, but lucky for you no artsy ones. With as many of the kids as I'm putting up, I didn't want to completely bore people (yea, yea, I know, "too late for that").
I didn't measure how much snow we got, but both Scott and Barry both seem to think it was about six inches, so I'll go with their estimate (anything over three inches seems like a huge amount to me). And it was good packing snow too (perfect for making snowmen).
I kept putting off going out to shovel the driveway because I was sure it was going to stop at any moment. The snow did eventually stop around two thirty and I headed out to shovel at that point. The kids were still eating lunch, but the plan was for them to come out too. About half an hour later it turned into light rain for a bit and about a half an hour after that it really started raining. Unfortunately the kids only made it out just before the first light rain started, so they didn't get to play out in the snow too much today.
I piled most of the snow from the driveway between the two forts I had built for them last time. Quinn actually used that as a sledding hill for a bit. Catherine meanwhile initially was just digging in the snow around the fort, tossing the snow back onto the sidewalk or driveway I had just cleared. But after being politely asked not to do that, she was very careful from then on not to put any more snow on the shoveled areas.
Eventually Catherine and Quinn both started building mini snowmen on their snow forts. Then Quinn started using Catherine's mini snowmen as target practice for his snowball throwing.
I'm not sure how it all started (I think it was about the time Quinn was targeting Catherine's snowmen), but at some point a snowball fight broke out between Ginger and Quinn.
Sadly my water proof ski gloves were completely soaked after shoveling the driveway and clearing off my car, so I missed out on the majority of the snowball fight except where I got hit by a few friendly fire incidents. The snowball fight eventually ended when Ginger managed to hit Quinn right in the face. In her defense, I think she was aiming for his chest and he ducked, I have it on video, but it's still hard to see what happened with the crappy resolution on video from the camera.
This was one of my favorite shots from today. It's Catherine throwing a snowball at Ginger, but if you look closely you'll see the snowball is actually behind Catherine's head (and even though you can't tell from the picture, heading in the other direction). You probably had to be there to appreciate the humor in it.
Eventually though once it started raining pretty hard we had to call it a day and head inside. The snow wasn't that great from what I could tell for sledding, but I'm hoping the snow sticks around some so that we can at least try sledding tomorrow or the next day out back. It's not suppose to get really cold tonight, so we shouldn't have the same situation as last time with the melting snow turning into a sheet of ice. And since they've had since this afternoon the roads should be clear by the morning. My guess would be the kids will have school tomorrow, it's just a matter of whether it will be on time or not. As of right now the schools aren't reporting a closing or delay, but they may wait till the last minute since I believe if they miss any more days they end up having to make them up at the end of the year.
"PAIN!"
"....waves and waves of searing pain."
Yep, just like the Horta, that's what Spock would have gotten from me too this morning had he mind-melded with me. I had the beginnings of another migraine this morning. Had the spots going and everything. I took some Excedrin Extra Strength and the spots went away and I was just left with nausea and the feeling like my eyeball was trying to escape from it's socket. I know I haven't been too good about sticking to my diet, but I seem to be getting these things a bit more frequently lately (I had one last week and then about two and a half months ago I had one also). Ginger did make some new pasta recipe from Cookbook Smasher last night that used a bunch of different cheeses, I wonder if that had anything to do with it. My diet did say I was suppose to try and avoid cheese (which I know I haven't been real good about doing).
I was planning on staying home all day, but after checking my work email around noon, I saw I had a ton of stuff I needed to address, so I headed into work (ended up being there till pretty late too, so I suppose it's a good thing I went in). Sometime after five my eye actually stopped twitching as much and things got much better. Crossing my fingers that things are better tomorrow.
The good news is they finally plowed our street today. Only took them a full week to get to us. The bad news is they piled up the snow right in front of our driveway. Guess who got to go out this morning and shovel the street to clear a path out for us. I can't believe they wait this long to scrape our road and then pile it up like that. I mean at this point why even bother scraping it. With the temperature today being in the 50s, a lot of the snow melted by itself and the road would have probably been mostly, if not completely, cleared by tonight anyway (I say that since areas that weren't scraped were clear tonight, and the only snow left on the road at this point is where they piled it up).
Catherine had her four year doctor's check up today. She's doing really well according the doctors (except for the eczema). She's not color blind, although we already knew that. How did we know? Two years ago when Quinn was getting tested for color blindness and they showed him the cards and asked what the pictures were, Catherine kept answering for him, so we were pretty sure she wasn't color blind. She's also in the high percentiles for weight and height. Which isn't too surprising since she's pretty tall compared to other girls her age.
I had originally planning on going to the doctor appointment with everyone, but at the last minute got dragged into help figure out why some software I had written a while back wasn't working properly. Here's hint why, after some investigation it turns out earlier in the week there was smoke coming from the hardware. No one bothered to mention that to the guys working the integration effort though.
And here's the last snow picture I plan on putting up for a while.
And it wouldn't be the flu unless there was at least one throw up incident. He's only thrown up the one time so far, so that's good I suppose. The bad part is it was right after "dinner" and in his bed, because anywhere else might have been simpler to clean up. And I quoted dinner since he really didn't eat anything and was just clingy with Ginger throughout dinner. 
