The Great North is COLD!

Wow! It's cold! -27F with -50F windchills is a little much I think! Apparently it's a little much for everyone, as school was cancelled today, because of the windchill. We only had 1 or 2 snow days in Bismarck in our time there, which were last year. When I was a kid, I LOVED snow days. Now, not so much. ;-)

The kids have enjoyed their "snow day." We have a fort behind the chair in the living room, equipped with a security camera. I told Gage he should probably turn the video off on his camera, or he would most certainly drain them. I really don't think a security camera was necessary, unless that was there to deter Brie from entering. Apparently she's "gassy" today. Or at least that is what I've been told about 3 times. However, I do know that to be true, as I went downstairs and got a whiff of the wonderful aroma. UGH! We have had problems keeping her out of the basement and out of the cat food and more importantly the cat BOX! YUCKO!

In Bismarck, we kept that cat food on top of the refrigerator so Brie couldn't get into it. We didn't want to really encourage Grus to be on the countertops here, so figured we would try it in the basement. It isn't easy trying to keep it open for the cat, but closed off to the dog. I didn't really want to cut a cat door into the door at the top of the basement stairs because they are nice, solid doors. We decided to just take the door off the hinges so Grus wouldn't accidentally get shut in or out of the basement. Well, Brie has been finding her way to the basement, and today, we are suffering because of it. Enough about dog farts! Who wants to read about farting, cat-poop-eating dogs??

Let me get started on a different subject.

A year and a half ago, we started saving money for a trip to Disney World. You may remember this, as I blogged about it http://behindthetimes-stacy.blogspot.com/2009/08/up.html. We finally made our savings goal and Scott has booked plane tickets for us to go in MARCH 2011! How exciting!! (and stressful!) After booking the tickets, we have been looking at many different options for activities. This is going to be our "trip of a lifetime", and because I know I will probably never get to go again, I want to do it all! HA! To do it all is going to cost WAY MORE than we saved! :( One of the top things on our list is to go to The Wizarding World of Harry Potter, which is at Universal Studios' Island of Adventures. I know this is pathetic, but I really didn't know all of these different attractions weren't actually "Disney World"! I thought it was all together. I'm learning, in a hurry, that this isn't the case. Disney World contains 4 theme parks, Epcot Center, Hollywood Studios, Magic Kingdom and Animal Kingdom. Universal Studios is a whole different thing, which means a whole new set of tickets, which means we need a whole lot more moolah! If I had looked at this stuff BEFORE we booked the tickets, I think I would have put it off for awhile so we could save more money. However, I think it could be true that a person never actually has enough. You can find more and more things to do to spend more and more money. It's probably good that we know what our limit is. The bad thing is that it will more than likely be spent BEFORE we even get there, on plane tickets, hotel reservations, etc, etc. However, we are all very excited. We've never taken a real family vacation before. Gage and Emma think Clearfield, Iowa is a vacation destination. We did go to Colorado a couple of years ago, but that didn't really count because it was a business trip of Scott's, that we just tagged along on. That is the closest thing we've had to a real vacation, so we are quite excited about this. Planning a vacation of this magnitude is also very stressful! Thankfully, an old high school friend of mine read my plea for help on FB, and has offered her assistance! I had no idea she was a travel agent! She will most certainly be a lifesaver in this endeavor!