Our E X T E N D E D Christmas Break

Joshua was supposed to be out of school December 20th - January 4th. His school has a attendance policy that if the kids miss less than 3 days during the semester than they do not have to take the semester finals. Those were to take place on December 18th and 19th. When Joshua heard about this, he was determined not to have to take the tests and he only missed one full day and then a couple individual classes here and there for appointments and such. So his break was to start on the 18th. That was before the storm. We had some weather move in on the 15th. There was some freezing rain mixed with some sleet. For those of you who don't live in Arkansas, let me explain the conditions. You know how when it snows and then you have a warm day and the snow melts a lot, and then the sun goes down and everything refreezes at night...and yah, it's slick, but definately not the end of the world? That is what we had. It started on Monday morning. By noon they had cancelled the rest of the day of school and sent the kids home. Josh came home already watching the news to see if they would cancel school the next day. I thought that there was no way it would happen. It truely wasn't that bad! Nothing even close to justify cancelling school in Colorado. But sure enough, by about 4 o'clock the whole state was shut down including all the schools. I couldn't believe it! And to boot...all the stores were closed! The grocery stores...even the gas stations! The kids and I went with the neighbors to go out for pizza that night and the pizza parlor was closed! By this time all the major roads were clear...maybe a little wet still but not icy. That night Josh was praying for one more day off because it was his last day before break. I thought no way. And sure enough...about 7 o'clock that night word went out that school was cancelled once again! NO WAY! The kids and I went shopping all day. That sounds like weather worth cancelling school for. They did hold school Thursday and Friday for the kids who had to take finals, but Josh has been out of school since the 15th of December. I took some pictures of the kids playing in it on the morning of the 16th. This was the worst of the storm. I can only draw one conclusion from our first Arkansas snow storm....Arkansans are snow pansies!