It's really not my fault I haven't posted much this week. I was working on the OCD candy eating post when I had to call in for jury duty. Then I actually had to report. Then I actually got selected and had to go to a trial. It was very interesting. Most drunks guys just accept a DUI, but this one was smart enough to realize that no one could prove he had been driving while drunk, and got off. (The state's attorney knew it was going to happen too. He was a new hire and was just given the case to practice with, it seems. He was very inexperienced) Too bad the guy hadn't been smart nough not to get slobbering drunk in the first place. Again, it was interesting. I had a good time. But they should make the jurors chairs more comfortable.
Oh and speaking of the OCD candy thing, Erin brought up a good point. Those rules don't apply to things like Skittles, where the colors are actually indicative of the taste. There are a whole different set of rules for those kind of things.
It snowed here this weekend. Probably about 2 inches. We have this uhge backyard (Well, not really huge, but plenty big enough to play in) TH eproblem is that our garage is filled with crap, and tit's kinda hard to get out the back door in the winter. So we have to go out the back door form the house to the deck. And the deck is covered in snow. You see where I'm going here? Last ice storm we had that got covered in snow, Rob had to get the ladder to go over the fence and then dig open the door to the deck so he and Ally could play outside. This time it didn't look that bad, but we just decided to play in the front yard instead. We don't have a lot of front yard. very small. But plenty of room to buid a snowman.
When I was a kid, I was always disappointed at how rolling up the snow into balls would usually expose all the dirt and grass underneath and it wouldn't be all pure white and pretty by the time you were done. So I decided to make sure we had plenty of snow for our snowmen without using the grass covered bits. I shoveled our driveway into the yard to use. Then I shoveled our neighbors driveway - into our yard. Lots of extra snow. Then Rob shoveled the other neighbors driveway just to be nice. But I made him wait until after I had made my body snow balls on the driveway. Clean snow! It was perfect packing snow. I was able to roll a ball down the driveway and just let it "snowball" itself bigger. We made 2 snowmen. Before we started, Rob took Ally to the store to get carrots. We had none. And everyone knows you can't have a snowman without a carrot for his nose. They got cherries for the mouth and bok choi (some lettuce-y stuff) for ears. We used Ally's plastic builder hat and arrows for arms. Our snowmen had character! Then we went in and had some hot chocolate. It was lots of fun.
Anya didn't think so. While Rob and Ally were gone, we took Anya outside. She wore Ally's size 18 month snowsuit. It came pretty close to fitting her. but she was tired. It was her nap time, and she really wasn't all that curious about the snow. We only had her out about 5 minutes and then had to put her to bed.
After we all warmed up, Rob and I went out and got new cell phones. Our old ones were probably 3 years old and our contract had expired. We went ahewad and signed up for a new contract and even got a third line. We can pay $10 a month and turn our home phone (which costs $25 even without long distance available) off. it was a big complicated affair and took almost 3 hours. I'm so glad Darra was there to babysit, cause I can't imagine tryingt o get that done with the kids in tow.
Then Bob came over to visit. It was very weird having Rob's mom and dad visiting at the same time. Not uncomfortable, but odd. They never see each other without their new (ha, they've been remarried for over 15 years - both of them) spouses. Bob's weird like that. But, he wanted to bring over Rob's birthday present. (Did I tell you Rob had a birthday? He's 30 now. Ally went iwth me to the store to pick out a cake and she turned down chocolate in favor of pineapple upside down cake. So we had candles in pineapple upside down cake. it looked very out of place) He brough us steaks. Yummy. Now it just needs to warm up so Rob can cook them out on the grill.
That night we went out for ice cream at Cold Stone Creamery. I have no idea if this place is a chain that anyone would know what I'm talking about or not. But it's really good. They have ice cream that tastes like cake! What more could you want? We had a pretty good weekend. I'm putting pictures out. Check out Flickr