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Here are the snow photos. We got probably 5-6 inches. From reading the paper, this is the most snow we have on the ground since Groundhog's Day 2011.

 After about an hour of clearing out the other snow jobs I have, we watched Father Mario. What was funniest is that the person playing the piano did not make it to mass, so they sang "You Are My Sunshine" as the recessional music.

As you can see, he was busy playing with his new LEGO toy.

After that, he helped me shovel. He brought that LEGO toy with him.

We did more spraying today too.

In the mid-afternoon we drove through the Arboretum.

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Today's Saturday scone breakfast took us about 45 minutes northwest to Devil's Lake. It was the warmest it has been in a while, about 30 degrees.

Here is a map of where we were....

 These picnic tables were either barely on the ice or barely on the beach. With all the snow, we really couldn't tell.

After breakfast, we walked across the lake. There were a few ice fisherman out there, so we knew it was safe. When we watched them with their ice auger, it appeared the ice was at least 18 inches thick.

When we got to the other side, we took a few pictures and then walked back north.

There is a spot for selfies that they advertise....so we took one.

Right before we went to our car, we checked out the fishing shacks. There weren't people in them, so we took a look. There must be a requirement that you put your name on your shack. We liked "The White House."

In the early afternoon, we went to Hy-vee. Not sure why it took a half hour...but it did. We have a snowstorm now, so perhaps there were some logistical issues. Regardless, we got our groceries today, which is always nice.

Around 4PM, we did our craft of water spray painting the snow. It was actually quite fun. For him, he got the color yellow, so he had fun making pee....just like the neighborhood dogs do on the snow.

Expecting pictures of snow tomorrow.

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He wanted to go out to the yellow playground today. It was even easier to get him to agree if we would see a brachiosaurus there.

 We played on the fire truck again. I think we only put out two fires today.

Saw this interesting icicle today.

Posing for a selfie at the Dr office. It's been a long time since I had been there with him..sometime early 2020?

We put the puppet theater in his room and took out the changing table.

He thought the pizza looked like an umbrella.

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Day 321 Blastoff!

Today was much the same as yesterday. Cold and clear and we basically did the same things.

We did go to the library today to return some books and pick up a book. After the library, I'm not sure why, but he wanted to walk to the train station to pretend to catch a train. I'm happy he was able to navigate there. It's always good to have a mental map.

At night we went out to the toybox in the park again. On the way there, we noticed the icicles on the evergreen tree in our yard.

Also, the full moon of January, the Wolf Moon!

Instead of playing LaCrosse, we spent time throwing snow around.

And made more bricks of snow.

And then demolished the brick home.

There should be more snow this weekend it sounds like. We might just take the brick making tools home and play with them....and then return later at night.

Finished another book. Basically the story about the guy who wrote the book Hiroshima. Back then, journalists were not really allowed to enter the atomic cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The author was able to find a way into Hiroshima a year after the bombings and collect the stories of what really happens to people after a nuclear bomb attack. It was something the US government was not happy with people knowing about (radiation sickness, low white blood cell count, headaches, and just a slow painful death).

last page of the book

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I'm doing this blog at 1PM today. Our dishwasher is finally getting fixed, yay!

When we got the call this morning, he requested the dishwasher be empty, so we did a last ceremonial leaning up against the dishwasher exercise. We watch Dino Dan videos....he really likes those.

A bit silly playing basketball.

Here he is fixing the dishwasher. You have to be a bit covert, so you see a bit of my computer and then him. He has to pull out the dishwasher and then assemble the piece. 

I hope we never have to do this again, but I did for the first time in like...ever...pay for the Bosch warranty for another year. I'm just hoping this dishwasher is not a lemon and want to make sure I don't have to pay for stuff like this. What do you think a dishwasher repair like this would have cost? $200?

We went outside again tonight. Last night we saw the big box of toys in our park. It is basically an activity box and has a bunch of things to do. Our park has it for two weeks. 

One of the items is for playing LaCrosse. We passed the ball around a bit. Kind of fun, but hard to catch the ball.

More fun was this mold to make snow bricks. Our snow is very dry, so it didn't work as well as it could have, but we still were able to make walls and a house.

When we got back inside, it was 1 degree. Brrr!

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Snow day. 

The prediction for our snow kept on going up and up. I expected about 3 inches when I opened the garage door this morning. I still don't know how much we got, but it was about as high as my snowblower...so may 7, 8 inches or more?

Around 11:30 the snow was starting to wind down and we got outside with the sled. 

However, it was quite deep, so the sled didn't really want to go downhill... so we kind of walked around and plunked ourselves in the snow.

I thought he'd be done with the snow, but then he helped clean up snow at our place and one of our neighbors. That was really helpful since I needed to make the rounds again to clean up since the snowplow came through an re-buried the driveways.

At night, we trudged out again.

And made snow angels...

...and tried out the teeter totter on a cold crisp night (it is 10 degrees now at 9PM).