Pirates of Punzance

Last Saturday night, Aidan attended a pirate themed sleepover at the North Area YMCA. We dropped him off at 8 pm with his sleeping bag, pillow and swimsuit, and picked him up the next morning at 8 am. In the twelve hours he was there, he watched movies, participated in a treasure hunt, made a team flag, went swimming (the pool had a huge inflatable pirate ship in it), ate snacks and managed a few winks of sleep. He had a great time and talked nonstop about his adventures on the way home.

When we picked him up, the team flags were displayed on the counter and we thought they were very fun and imaginative. Our friend Lisa is the director at that location, so I asked her what was going to be done with the flags; if at all possible, I wanted to get the one that Aidan had helped to create so we could display it in his room. Lisa said that there were no plans for the flags, made sure that she got Aidan's flag and then brought it over last evening.

Avast, me hearties and feast yer eyes on the Jolly Roger:


Aidan added a pirate pun to one corner:


Shiver me timbers!

The winter that wasn't

According to the calendar, today is the first day of spring. How can it be spring when we didn't really have winter?

According to the National Climate Center at Cornell University, the 2011-2012 winter season was the warmest on record since 1902 - the average mean temperature was 34.5 degrees. Not only was it warm, but we did not get much snow: Hancock International Airport received an inch or more of snow on only 15 days. To really understand how mild this winter was, consider this: as of March 14, we had received 50.6 inches of snow; in an average winter we would have received 111.9 inches of snow by that date and last year, we had received 174.2 inches of snow (source: GoldenSnowball.com)! So from last year to this year, the difference was an astounding 123.6 inches.

The upside of a mild winter is that James used the snowblower only twice, Aidan missed only one day of school, our heating bill was lower and I did not develop trigger finger from grasping the snow shovel handle. But those of you in milder climates might be surprised to hear that there is a downside: we did not have the opportunity to use our snowshoes at all, Aidan went sledding just once, we did not get to try cross-country skiing and Aidan did not get to go downhill skiing again. To put it bluntly, we feel a little cheated that we did not get to enjoy more outdoor winter fun.

The past two winters have been an amazing study of contrasts. Would it be too much to ask that we have an average winter next year?