Wednesday, January 29, 2014

Snowpocalypse V. Snowmageddon...you decide.

January 28th started out like any other day, except with a threat of possible snow. David went off to work and Nate went off to school. The snow storm was supposed to hit south of the  city of Atlanta. Bonnie was visiting but she got a call from her kiddos school saying they were going to close at 11:30, so she had to leave early.  Around 11 I was notified that school was going to be closing at 12:15. By this time there was a little bit of snow starting to accumulate. When I left to pick Nathan the snow was coming down fast and heavy, my normally one minute drive to Nathan's school took me six minutes (which at the time seemed like a big deal, but after hearing about other people's 12-20 hour commutes it wasn't so bad).

Meanwhile, David left work at noon to go get something to eat. While he was out his unit called and told him to go home. In an hour he made it one mile from the base and realized that he wasn't going to be able to make it home so he turned around and headed back to Dobbins. I told him to stop at Walmart and get some supplies for the night. On his way back the traffic was so bad, he got out of his truck, went into Waffle House and ate then got back in his truck and continued the longest drive back. All in all his trip was about four hours and a night spent at the unit on a cot. 
One of the families that David works with was stuck and couldn't make it back to their home so we took them in (the mom and two kids). We had a full house, but we had a lot of fun playing in the snow. 
The next morning David made it home in one of the units 4WD trucks, and later that afternoon the Hogan family was able to make it back home. 


















Friday, January 10, 2014

Birds

We have two little finches like this one (Carolina Chickadee)
We got a bird feeder this Spring as something fun for the boys, well I have become quite the bird watcher this fall. I am quite amazed by the variety of birds we have attracted. All of these pictures were taken in this last week, none of them have been edited in any way. If some of them seem a little blurry, it is because when I opened the door to look at them through the screen door it frosted up because of our cold weather. I do not know why these birds have not migrated further South to warmer climates. I tried to get at least one good picture of each of our bird friends.
Our woodpecker

We think this is the female Cardinal (it is)



There are three of these birds (Blue Jay)

The male cardinal

Don't know what this one is, it is a grayish blue (Titmouse)


This is my favorite picture

A Wren? (Brown Thrasher)


Not sure what this little guy is either

I really like this woodpecker picture too. It was hard to get a good back view of him

Don't know what this one is, but he has awesome coloring (House Finch)
Upside down bird

I see you there (brown Nuthatch)

I guess the woodpecker is top heavy


If you have any information leading to the naming of these birds, let us know.We want to know who we are stalking.
(Since this original post, we have bought a bird book and are able to identify most birds in parenthesis)

Friday, January 3, 2014

Walking in a Winter Wonderland

 We went with grandma Rygmyr, aunt Kristen, aunt Caitlin and uncle Atkins to the Global Winter Wonderland in Atlanta. It was pretty neat, but extremely cold! It was a cultural event made up of lit up sites from around the world. In one night we saw sights from London, Egypt, China, Australia and lots more. Nathan was most excited to go through the dinosaur maze. They had dinos that roared and moved. Second to that Nathan was excited about the cotton candy. When we got there AJ had fallen asleep (he didn't take a nap during the day) so David got to carry him around. When he did wake up, he was very confused about his surroundings. Grandma and David took Nathan on the Merry-go-round. Nathan like it 1000x more than his first merry-go-round experience (in Iowa) and AJ tolerated it, still semi-confused. We stayed for as long as we could before the bitter cold won out and we had to go. But we had a lot of fun traveling the world in our few short hours. (the pictures on this post uploaded out of order, sorry.)

It was in one of the parking lots at Turner Field, this is a view from above.

Nate and AJ called this one "Koopa's Castle" from Mario


They had foam "snow". Nathan liked it until he realized it was fake.

Snuggled up with mommy!

Nathan was SO excited about the dinosaurs



The T-Rex started moving and surprised me



Super cute with his hands in his pockets

Loving him some cotton candy


"Look mom, I'm riding an alligator"

AJ riding the honey bee