Our First Wrestler and Other Things

I'm coming to you from ND, where March is definitely in like a lion where we are in the worst snow storm event of the winter.  The news stations have been talking this storm up since last week and pretty much ever district in the state except BPS (even neighbor city Mandan) cancelled school today. Based on the comments on their FB page you would think they asked kids to face certain death by not cancelling.  It's even more dramatic than the wildfire smoke/outdoor recess controversy of September 2017.  It hasn't been directly stated but I believe they know they will have to cancel tomorrow so having school today was a way of avoiding having an extra day at the end of the year but who knows.  I drove him and Tessa to school this morning and it wasn't bad at all besides snow falling but when I picked Tessa up and there were only four kids left in the room.  Only seven started the day out of more than twenty and three picked up their kids early.  Maybe I'm not taking this seriously enough.  It was pretty bad driving home because my wipers were caking with heavy snow and it was hard to see through my windshield.  Ben is riding the bus home and I'm not worried.  As a bus kid myself I know that buses pretty much plow through anything and not much can go wrong driving 20 mph on neighborhood streets.  I'm glad I don't have to go out again.  I'm also glad I got the kids out of the house for the morning because I had to tackle an unpleasant task-defrosting and cleaning the fridge.

The fridge has been acting up for a few weeks.  First the freezer was not cooling and we put a thermometer in there at it was barely below freezing.  So Justin did a major defrost of just the freezer and even removed the panel in the back and melted ice with a hair dryer. Then after a few days I noticed the fridge was not keeping things cold and the thermometer revealed it was only cooling to 48-50 degrees when it should apparently be between 35 and 40.  We remained in denial about it for awhile but last night I knew it couldn't be ignored and I decided to defrost the whole thing before resorting to calling a repair man (I am home alone this week and we really don't want to spend money on it since we are moving soon).  So last night I emptied the whole thing and put most of the food on the deck.  I filled two large coolers and then left everything that wouldn't be hurt by getting wet in boxes.  And wet it did get with rain, sleet and then snow.  The kitchen was completely trashed with expired condiments, embarrassingly disgusting shelves and drawers that haven't been cleaned for...well...I'm not going to tell you...and lots of beer and pop cans and juice boxes all over the floor.  If you saw it you probably would hesitate to eat anything I prepared every again.

The good news is I woke up to a puddle of water all over the floor even though I used towels in the fridge and freezer and had a bowl of water to catch the melting water (I guess it drains in a different way) and now the fridge is properly cold again. I hope it lasts.


The bad news is I now have a backlog of sopping wet, snow drenched towels, soggy cardboard boxes and water streaked floors to deal with.

I am a bit behind on posting.  One fun thing I have meant to post about is Ben's wrestling.  About a month ago he brought home a flier from school about a two week wrestling program that would be taking place after school at each elementary school.  It cost $10 and only entailed two weeks of practice and two meets so, even though we don't come from wrestling backgrounds, there was no reason to say no.  I just can't say no to cheap and accessible activities that involve physical exertion.  The more the better. Ben enjoyed it quite a bit and it was kind of fun to watch.

These first pictures with the grey shirt are from the first meet two weekends ago.  The referee there is someone we know so that was a fun coincidence.  He said Ben did good and had a good grab or something.  I don't remember the wording but he said it was good for his age group.

Yes, that is a girl.  It was a big uncomfortable to watch but at this age they are physically equal so why not I guess?

There were no awards or scores kept at these tournaments.  Every kid got a ribbon.

These pictures with Ben in a black shirt are from Friday night a few days ago.  

He ended up being poked in the eye but he took a short break and finished the match.  The second kid he wrestled was a real face clawer. 

Way to go. 

Tessa's school had a week of theme days to observe Dr. Suess's birthday and to my delight, the dreaded "dress as your favorite Dr. Suess character" day was not on the list.  Monday was "wear crazy colors" day, Wednesday was Wacky Day and Friday was Crazy Socks day . 

She said she won for wearing the most rainbow things because she had a rainbow shirt, necklace, skirt and pants.  There was no prize.  Apparently they just counted as a class.

This was on Wacky Wednesday also known as Tessa's every day style day. I didn't get a picture of her socks outfit.  She wore a pair of my Christmas socks with snowmen on them as thigh highs.  

This is a bit off topic but I thought I should post about it sooner than later-my Valentine's Day flowers are growing.  How weird is this?

That snapdragon stem is still green!  I am waiting to see if the new buds open up.  Now it is even leaning toward the window to find sunlight.  I looked to see if it had roots sprouting but it doesn't.