Big Seven Lake in Winter

Remember that lake Frederick and I used to swim across this Summer?

Eating out with Granny

I suddenly realized that it was nearly time for Granny to fly home and there was still stuff to do.  So on Saturday I took her to Ann Arbor to eat at Zingermans (see below) and shop at Trader Joe's and the big Barnes and Noble (no substitute for the now-defunct Ann Arbor-born Borders) with two escalators.

 Then, on Sunday, we took her to the Historic (you have to include that) Holly Hotel for brunch.  This was her real birthday meal, to make up for the rather crappy diner pot pie she had then.  The HHH is great but they don't seem to believe in lighting, as you can see:

In case some of you had been trying to reach us since yesterday, we lost the internet and phone AGAIN, only this time because AT&T have actually been trying to improve our service.  When I rang up originally to report the outage that happened in the ice storm, somebody talked me into a "free upgrade" in bandwidth.  I thought this would happen automatically, but on Monday, fresh out of bed in the morning we got a call that a serviceman was coming out to give us a new modem.  Fair enough, we thought, this won't take long.  But oh how wrong we were.  The one guy worked on it and worked on it, and worked on it.  Then left, came back with another modem, then left and came back with a pal and another van.  Then the two of them climbed long ladders and tinkered with wires outside, then before we knew it, it was dark and they promised to come back tomorrow.  Well they did, and again they worked the whole day, and still nothing.  When asked what the problem is, they keep saying "it's complicated."  Apparently so.

Out and about

In Grand Blanc Commons:

...and on Mott Lake (which has Bluebell Beach on one side and Stepping Stone Falls on the other):

Christmas!

This is several days late because we only today got our internet service back after 7 longs days without it since the massive power cuts. It is reputed that at one point 500,000 people were without power since the storm on Sunday. As of this morning, 50,000 people were still without power and as of earlier this evening about 25,000 still do not. We lost power on Sunday and were without until Tuesday late afternoon. It was boring and stressful, mainly because it was about 10 degrees out and figuring out what to eat without the use of any kitchen appliances or the stove was not fun. Worse, most of the stores around us were without power and so were closed, so if we needed to stock up on anything it was simply tough luck. But at least we had the wood burning stove so our indoor temp was in the mid-60s, unlike most people whose household temps hovered in the low 40s. And, blessedly, we had hot water to take showers and wash dishes. Still, we were damn glad when the power went on. Here is our Christmas tree. It was green when we brought it into the house but almost immediately began to die quite dramatically. It was very mysterious (especially since we have had this tree for 4 or 5 years and it has done very well inside in the past) but once Simon noticed the feline urine smell coming from the dirt, the source of the problem seemed clear. I have my suspicions as to who is the culprit, but no proof as of this point. Of all the Charlie Brown Christmas trees, this has to be Charlie Browniest.

Martha trying to keep warm any way possible.

Frederick must have his walkies--even in dramatic weather.

Ok, enough is enough.

Very pretty.

Thomas modeling his new felted vest.  I am confident that he will be wearing that for every semi-formal occasion he is required to attend during the next several years.  It was a helleva lot of work to make this since I have gotten rid of my top loading washing machine.  Grandma's machine is strange and was unwilling to agitate in any way that was recognizably useful.  For all future purple vests (and Thomas will continue to grow, I suspect) I may have to invest in a counter top top loading washing machine.

Here Thomas smokes Simon while playing some Mario thing or other on the WiiU.  After Simon gave up I tried.  That wasn't too successful, either.  Eventually Thomas got so frustrated with the both of us (he accused us of purposefully playing badly to mess up his scores!) that he booted us off the game and played solo.

Frederick amused himself outdoors.  He liked to slide down face first with his mouth open so he could plow the snow into his mouth.

...then dusted with snow

A land dipped in ice

Sound effects

Before and After

I took photos from the same places on Saturday and on Sunday:

Destruction, pt. 2

This happened at 10 AM today.  Now you see it:

...and now you don't:

We have actual footage of it going down taken by Granny with the old tape videorecorder but I have to convert it.  We were both convinced we'd missed it and I was right.  The bang was so deafening it left us all befuddled, but I swear my camera was just slow to react.  It was all very abrupt.  We got as close as we could but downtown was all sealed off (including the entire UM-Flint campus) and with power out, traffic was very cautious.