Blizzard warning in effect

According to the WVLY web site, that's ValleyNewsAlive, (I suppose they could say "at five"; the current temperature is 13 degrees with a feels like -8 here in Grand Forks with a genuine Blizzard.  I - 29 is closed from here north to the Canadian border so if you were planning on a trip to Winnipeg, Manitoba this afternoon, best reconsider.  Also if you were planning on flying to Raleigh, NC this afternoon, best rebook. We have.

And I am already having fun. Went out for a brief walk after lunch just to try out my blizzard legs.  Walking into the wind is a bit rough. With the wind is deceptively easy and a bit of a temptation that I suggest be resisted. Come home with the wind. Your eyebrows will hurt less I imagine.

In the park near the kids house the wind was a little less strong and the snow was piling up.

the view out the front window — it is a little gray and white — and getting more white.

looking down a street.  You can lose site of a car or a person walking in just a short distance.

Looking forward to some play time after the wind dies down. Also Matt has promised I get to run the snow blower too.  I think he has some Tom Sawyer in him, but I don't care.  When I get tired, I will just give it back to him.  He did say it was a bit of a bear to operate. 

Time has flown

Time has flown, and much has been done these past few days here in Dakota del Norte.  Matt took us on a tour of UND and it is obvious winter is in its waning days and the snow piles are less than attractive.  The sun was shining, the wind was brisk and most students were taking advantage of the underground tunnels between buildings.  

We braved the wind.  Looking for a door to get into the tunnels.  Matt was ultimately successful.

Fortunately we were dressed for success

and for style, and the wind.

We also had a delightful meal and evening at Matt's parent's home.  Jan and Luther entertain most graciously and we were very well fed and entertained.

Part of the evenings entertainment consisted of a rousing card game across three generations of spoons.  Spoons is fast moving and a lot of fun.  We had a wonderful evening and even stayed late and watched some playoff hockey as well as basketball.  Well the adults did.  Matt and Laura took the kids home and did the baby sitting routine.  The adults got to stay out late.  UND won their game and ultimately made the hockey Frozen Four, none of my teams made the basketball Final Four.

On another day we went to the nearby Turtle River State Park for a hike along the Turtle River valley.  The river was still partially frozen over and there was still a lot of snow.

The kids were good hikers and Matt laid out a pretty good hike through the woods along the river for us.

and for some of the hike I had a passenger too.  A sweet passenger but a passenger.

We hiked enough to get us to begin to shed some of the warm weather gear we had on.

We have had a great time and head home tomorrow pending the weather.  A blizzard is forecast.  We will see.  Kinda am hoping for a serious one.  But I think I am in a minority on that wish up here based on what I heard at church this morning.  So I sorta kept my opinion to myself.

Well it ain't Kansas

But my goodness it is cold, and somewhat dreary looking — no spring flowers, budding trees yet.  But my goodness it does have cute grandkids.  Wrapped up as here.  Luke keeps his hands in the pockets of his jumpsuit, he doesn't like gloves.  Patt and I are visiting Grand Forks where winter is reportedly (according to the natives) on its way out, and the snow is obviously melting, hence the grave rather dismal looking piles of gray stuff all about town.. --

 There are still plenty of fields with the crunchy white stuff left in a nearby park that we enjoyed on a brisk, make that very brisk, walk this morning.

I think the snow is evaporating with the wind rather than melting from the heat of the day.  John Paul will agree with me.

Here Patt is helping him navigate around some "black ice" that does in a Raleigh driver so quickly on Glenwood Avenue.

The boys were enraptured watching a video of their cousin Raleigh that Jen sent Grandmamamamama.  Both Luke and John Paul use multiple mammamamamas on the end of Grand for Patt's name.  (and yes she likes it).   For a while they also called me Grandmamamamama too and that was OK, but we are now getting to a more traditional Grandaddy.  Occasionally it gets multiple syllables at the end, but not like the maternal grandparent.

Reading time — yes I can label a photo

and playing with the train set

and most of us are playing with the train set

Julianna rocked Luke for a while to help with the chaos, as did Grandmamamama

this is while we were in charge of the house and the parental units were out on a date— we were baby sitting, fed 'em dinner, played, read, and put 'em to bed, and it is time to watch some basketball on the  tee vee.

this isn't your father's ACC

On Wednesday, I went to the ACC tournament's opening day.  One of the few actually, who bothered to show up for the losers bracket.  These first three games were played to make up teams to meet three of the bottom half of the upper half of the league.  (make sense?).   Wake drew Notre Dame, one of the new teams in the "not your father's ACC", and who apparently have really fallen on hard times.

The Greensboro Coliseum has seen many many games that had larger more enthusiastic crowds.  There were plenty of seats available and a portion of the upper deck had a curtain hung to block of the ocean of empty seats.

Wake jumped out to an early lead over the not-so-fighting Irish.  We hit some shots, got some rebounds, and generally made Notre Dame look rather weak.  I enjoyed the game.  First half, upper deck first row.

For the second half, I moved to the first row right behind the press row.  Even better seats and we continued our mastery of our hapless opponents and low and behold, the long drought was over and Wake had won a post season game meaning I was to return to Greensboro to see Wake play a second game.  Optimism is an amazing thing.

Last year, Stephen and I came for the tournament to see both Wake and State play and stayed for the entire time, saw all the games and enjoyed Miami winning.  Great time and great games while our preferred teams did not win, our least preferred teams did not, so all in all, not a bad tournament.  (We enjoyed seeing both Duke and Carolina suffer losses last year.)

Back to this year, second day, feeling optimistic, as we were to play another of the new teams, the Pitt Panthers. I was there early and went into the FanFest tent, met the Deacon, and had a good time.  We are thinking victory.

That was the end of the good time.  Pitt, put a whoopin' on the Deacs.  Our post season woes returned and goodness we were pitiful.

There were more people in attendance, as better teams (Pitt for example) were playing this day, and they did indeed highlight just how big a difference there is between good and bad teams.  I left early since  I already knew what bad teams look like.

up next the NCAA's and I will be making out a bracket or two once and sans Deacons.

our pitiful Deacs

Saturday Patt and I went to see our beloved Deacons at the Joel.   Well that is not exactly correct as beloved is more accurate this year presented as belittled, much to my chagrin.  This condition has been developing all year and is is reaching a chronic and persistent condition.

The two girls in the seats to our left in front of us came with sketch pads and iPhones with games and paid zero attention to the activities of the game in front of them.  The seats in front of us were occupied by fans dressed as vacant seats — short vacant seats specifically for which I actually like as it is very easy to look over them that way.  The girls little brother and Dad were a couple of seats down from us on the left and had to go to concessions stands and the bathroom (or somewhere) a lot.

The action on the floor consisted often of us, the Deacons, retreating back on defense after a missed shot — we got two offensive rebounds — TWO — girls teams, bad girls teams get more than that.

The crowd was announced at 10,000 in a 14,000 seat arena.  Many obviously came dressed as vacant seats like the ones near Patt and me.

Among the highlights of the afternoon were the T-shirt toss - notice the white shirt falling in front of big guy in green whose name we can never remember who sits to our front right whose wife's name is Bonnie.  Note the strenuous kid action to catch the shirt- there were a fair number of little kids at the game as there were lots of tickets given away I think.

This is what the aisles looked like in the later stages of the games this year as the Deacon faithful began their traditional storm the court activity about which safety concerns have been raised.

 My last view of the game as we participated in court stemming activities too.  How we ever got to to within eight points of a team that previously had won only seven games and playing on our own court is an amazing statement.  Wait 'til next year.  We'll get 'em.  (perhaps)

and we had some weekend visitors

Two very special visitors at that.  Matt came to North Carolina for a conference and brought daughters one and two for a long weekend with us.  So Friday AM we met them at the airport with two cars, sent Matt on his way and the four of us had a wonderful weekend.

Picked a few flowers, - some to take home to North Dakota - and some for the counter in in the kitchen here at home in North Carolina. —

At a nearby museum, the kids were very serious participants in science experiments.  Wet cold (for us) Fridays make great days at museums if you have an interest in going I suggest a trip with a kid.

We scheduled our visit to the butterfly house at feeding time and it was lively.  The butterfly house has identification leaflets to aid in identifying the incredible number of amazing butterflies that are in the house. 

For example:  below is the - well, I forgot exactly which one it was— Paper something I think

 and this one is the Owl butterfly — (I am pretty sure), they are both pretty though

We did play some cards, watch Wizard of Oz, (did not stay up to late Laura), did some book reading, played in the cup-de-sac, went for a walk, to church and Sunday School, and had a generally great time.

Went shopping for birthday presents for brothers from the grandparents for upcoming birthdays in March, and "because I was out of town" gifts for their brothers from the girls.  That was a hoot.

And come supper time even had help cooking.  (Matt got back into town Sunday afternoon and took this picture) and then Monday AM the weekend ended and back to the airport we went. —

Such a fast fast wonderful wonderful weekend.

yeah we had some snow

Photo below I understand is a "viral" photo (I got it from the internet) and is of a traffic jam on Glenwood Avenue about two miles further out of town than where we are.  The hills of Glenwood are somewhat of a challenge when iced over and the storm did come very fast as this was just one of many hills that were blocked by a troublesome car or truck around the city Wednesday.  (It is a rather dramatic photo isn't it).  (rest of the story on the car fire — no known cause, no one hurt, but did sorta jam up traffic)

This is North Hills Drive.  A few cars did come by while I was out for a walk.  A fair number of walkers came by — from abandoned cars.  When I started walking the snow was falling but it changed to a very strong wind with a stinging sleet. 

Our house — looked kinda nice — we had four inches of snow — with a sleet cap which made is real crunch. —and it was cold.

 Thursday we started the traditional next day melting.  These are the footprints of the neighborhood coyote.  He has a long stride.  That is my footprint next to his stride.  He came through our back yard, under the deck, across the concrete and down into the woods.  I have seen him in the cul-de-sac, as has Patt.  Patt thinks he may be a fox as his tail is very bushy.  

And this time next week we will have daffodils.  Lots of them.

On Friday 95% of the snow was gone - perhaps more.