Lost February

I know we did some fun things and just things in general the last 3 weeks or so but life as we normally know it has been put on hold the last little bit while I tried to work on my state license for my preschool.  The requirements are not terribly difficult but they are super particular and there are a lot of them.  Every evening after Jared and Lydia go to bed I try to chip away at the requirements list.  With planning preschool lessons and my application I am really missing that 2 hour nap Lydia used to take!  I was commenting to Mark that I was quite jealous of his plan time at school. Normally in the evening I would work on this blog, read a book, watch a show with Mark, or plan fun family outings or activities to do at home with Jared and Lydia but there has been none of that! I am almost done with the application part but will then need to make up safety drills and emergency evacuation plans, get zoning approved, meet with the fire inspector and zoning person, and meet with the state inspector.  Sometimes I get really stressed about all of this.  Part of it is that once you submit your application you only have 60 days to get it cleared. You also have to submit 3 background checks (for myself and Mark each) and a tuberculosis test which is only good for 30 days. We have put a decent amount of money into this preschool. We have paid for background checks, CPR/First Aid training, printing copies and fliers, paid County zoning and licensing fees, bought things like fire extinguishers and I am so worried that I will have done all this work and spent all this money/time and then I will not have enough kids to even run my preschool.  It is going to be a long Spring/Summer waiting for people to sign up! I feel like it has taken over my life and can't wait to have everything set up for the Fall.  I am so grateful to Mark who has been so supportive and encouraging.  I have also been trying to decide where to send Lydia to preschool next year.  We have toured two nearby schools and both would honestly be fine.  Lydia's biggest deciding factor is the playground but she would do fine at either. I feel like for this year of preschool I want it to be as much like school as possible. The dilemma I am facing is the schedule of the schools. The one I actually like a little bit more is MWF.  The problem is that my school will be T Th and I don't really want Lydia there since I am doing pretty much the same curriculum and she would be much older than the other kids. On the other hand if she was in my school then she would be going "to school" 5 days a week which would actually be some good preparation for her. At the same time, it is her last year before school and I would rather be able to go do fun stuff outside of preschool with her since soon enough she will be gone all day. Choosing a preschool is not really that big of a deal but it has been way more difficult this time around mostly just because of my preschool. I actually really wish she could go to the same one Jared went to but it is just too far away. We will figure it out soon.

We have had some crazy weather the past weeks I do remember that much. One day I drove over to Fishersville (about an hour away) for an all day training for (you guessed it) my state license and that day we had several tornado warnings.  I drove through pouring rain, scary dark clouds, crazy wind and ended the day with a beautiful full arched double rainbow and flood warnings.  We did not have any tornadoes touch down in Charlottesville but there were some within 45 minutes of us.  My friend Julie was kind enough to watch Lydia for me all day and then pick Jared up from school when she picked up her 2 boys. Jared and her son Tyler are best buddies and in the same class so Jared was pretty thrilled with the set up. Lydia and Julie are good buddies too and I know Lydia had fun with Julie.  It was so nice of her to help me out.  It was short notice too.  I had called the licensing people to ask some questions and they asked me about the training and strongly suggested I attend this one because they are only offered once a month and with all the requirements I needed to get it out of the way.  It was pretty boring and super long but at least I can check it off as done! That same week Mark and I drove up to Masanutten (35 minutes away) for a painful time share presentation.  We did one of these right after we were married and this once was probably worse! It was so long and they were so pushy. I actually won a contest I entered at Panera bread which is how it all started. I thought it was just for 200$ in gift cards to Panera but it turned out to be the gift cards + a 75$ visa + 2 separate stays in condos here in Williamsburg/Masanutten or 3 options in Florida. I don't know when we will go on these trips but for us having accomadations covered will really help out. I am not sure if they will be worth the time we spent at the presentation, it was so bad but we will try to enjoy our trips.  My friend Tara was kind enough to watch Lydia for us. It was weird to have 2 days in one week when other people watched Jared and Lydia.  That rarely happens once a month so twice in one week was really strange. I am glad we got the presentation done so now when we go on our trips we will not have to sit through it and I am really glad I could get that training out of the way.  Back to the weather. We also had more snow!  We had one weird snow/ice storm and and we had some awesome Spring like days followed by more snow.

There was not very much snow so we couldn't really go sledding but we did a few runs down our side yard.  Fortunately there were no injuries this time.

The ice was really interesting and really weighed down trees.  We were sightly concerned about trees falling onto our house or blocking our driveway...

This tree is not this curved regularly.  And the pine tree below is normally quite full. 

 One large branch did fall off of this tree (you can see it in the back) and around town you could see lots of downed branches. We were fortunate to not lose power.  We really lucked out with these winter storms this year. The last storm was not very big, school wasn't canceled or delayed and they are pretty quick to cancel.  It was my favorite kind of snow.  We could watch it fall and some piled up but not very much and it just turned everything into a winter wonderland. It was so pretty.

To show Spring is coming, we noticed our daffodil stems pushing out.  I am so happy to have my own daffodils growing. I hope they get enough sun to really sprout.  When we planted them in Colorado only the bulbs on the edges got enough sun so of the 30+ we planted we would get like 5 I hope we do better here.

On one of the pretty Spring days we met up with some ladies from church and had a fun play date/picnic in the morning and then met up with Julie and her boys at Walnut Creek in the afternoon.  Mark actually had the day off as Albemarle County asked the schools to close because it was the Primary voting day so lots of people would be at the schools.  Mark and I went to vote, it took about 10 minutes for both of us and then got to play outside all day. It was really nice to visit with fun people and Mark got to play disc golf at Walnut creek so he was pretty excited. This coming week looks like full on Spring. It's hard to believe its March already.  There are just 3 more months of school!

Awhile back, while reading the Friend magazine Jared noticed a fun project with paper airplanes.  The idea was to make a plane and slingshot it from a board with 2 nails attached in it.  He had been waiting patiently to make it and yesterday he and Mark got it done. I snapped this picture as I drove away to a baptism at church so it's not very clear.  They drilled 2 screws into the board, attached a rubber band between the screws made their planes, added a paperclip to them and had a fun time "flying" the planes from the deck.  Mark said that it ended up working pretty well.  I think it will be a great evening activity with these warmer days coming up.

  

Some other things probably happened and we have some fun things planned for March so I hope I can finish up my state application and get my evenings back!