borrowed time

I was shocked last night when I got the phone call from the school system that the kids would be on a three hour delay today.

still giggling after dq rang the Liberty Bell replica
There are moments (okay, sometimes nearly entire days) when they disobey, push one another's buttons, or are downright mean to one another and I question God's confidence in my ability to raise them.
But there are also moments (and sometimes days at a time) when there is harmony and my heart overflows. Oh how blessed I am to hear their chorus of voices calling Mommy..

So much so that I actually checked the school system's website to verify that someone hadn't hacked into the automatic phone tree as a joke.

did you know sea turtles like to munch on peanut butter & jellyfish sandwiches?

Sure enough, there was the notice that school would be operating on a three hour delay due to the threat of inclement weather.

we didn't find nemo, but dory was there!

And a quick check of our forecast confirmed that there was indeed a chance of freezing rain in the wee hours of the morning.

my girl loves owls

I was giddy as a school girl myself, I've always loved snow days.  Of course Murphy's law struck and all we got were rain showers.

pelicans really are big birds!

No snow, but there we were with three extra hours on our hands.

t-rex alert

And while I initially planned to let everyone sleep in and have a slow morning, they must have heard Ian getting ready for work and everyone was up and dressed by 8.

Hmm. What to do with an extra three hours?

dreaming of the omelette that would come from an egg this size

In order to seize the moment, we loaded up and left the house at the normal school time, we just didn't go to school.

comparing herself to the femur of the longneck...

 Guess you could say it was our "start the day field trip."

he asks to go see the dinosaurs at least once a week

 Nothing more than hitting our very favorite parts of the science museum.

just hanging around in a dino-print...

A museum we visit several times a month.

giant sloth anyone?

 It's not like it is anything new or that we haven't seen before.

man vs. giant arthropod

 But there was something special about being there during "borrowed time."

It was as if we all realized the little gift we'd been given in three extra hours together this morning.

and since we were downtown and had coupons for freebies...

By the time we stopped by the house to grab backpacks and lunchboxes and head to the school, there were choruses of, "This was the BEST school day EVER!"

So bring on our next delay...