Cora's birthday - 1/21/11

The long anticipated day of Grandbaby #2's arrival finally came Jan 21st, 2011. We had no idea ahead of time whether SHE was a boy or a girl.

Laura let me know shortly after 6 AM that she might be in labor. Around 9:30 AM she headed for the mid-wife's place and Cora was born at 12:52PM (yes, that's noon, not midnight).

Cora (short for Coraline) weighed in at 8 lbs, 8 oz and is 19 inches long. Everything went well though both Laura and Cora are exhausted.

(Laura just realized today that their names

rhyme.) :-)

Cora was in need of some oxygen for a short

while to keep her pink but she soon transitioned

to getting deep enough breaths on her own to keep herself pink (alternative color is blue).

Abi's parents prepared her well for what to expect and Abi has taken it all in stride. Abi

stayed with us on Cora's birthday and the next day as well, though we visited with her parents and sister for hours each day.

Cora slept 5 hours straight the first night. How about that! Wouldn't it be grand if she kept that up?

You can't tell in the second picture, but right now it looks like Cora has Ben's hair. It's curly in back. Time will tell if she keeps that look. It's been my experience that what they're born with isn't necessarily what they keep.

Still snow?

Who would have thought we'd still have a good deal of snow cover 5 days after our big snow? It's been below freezing all week. Just yesterday (Friday) it finally got up to 36 degrees. Today at 2:30 our thermometer says 40.

The weather man said this is the biggest snow in our area since the blizzard in 1993 (which we've been hearing about since we moved here) and before that a big snow in 1988. So, this really is

something in these parts.

So, these are some before and "after" (though it's not really after since it's not over yet) shots. One of our house, one looking up hill

from our front door and the third looking more or less North

through the Dogwood trees.

January Snow

Boy, did we have some snow! It all came during the night (after midnight). By the time we got up there was 7 or 8" of it! It continued to snow during the day but it didn't seem to add to the total inch count. (Please note - the date of 1/4/2003 is wrong in this photo. The camera camera somehow picked that date.)

Work delayed opening until 10:00, so at 9:40 I braved the snowy roads and headed for work. My boss called when I was about a 1/4 away from work and said "We're closing for the day, turn around and go home." He didn't have to ask me twice. I was already wondering if I was being

brave or foolish.

There were perhaps a half dozen cars on the road, making me one of the few giving this a try

which didn't make me feel any better about my wisdom meter. My wheels did a good bit of spinning on the cloverleaf on ramp. I kept them spinning because I was making progress and still heading in the right direction. I breathed a sigh of relief when I made it to the highway.