I knew it had been forever since I blogged. I didn't realize it had been a full 2 months. But it's a new year, so it's time for a fresh start.

And what better time for a fresh start than on a day with record breaking cold temperatures?  This is one of those days they'll talk about for a long time. It went below zero air temperature about 10pm last night, and hasn't come back yet. In fact, as I write this, my weather app tells me it is Negative 14 degrees with a 'feels like' temperature of Negative 37 degrees. That's about what it's been all day long. And it isn't predicted to go above Zero until 1pm tomorrow!

Today was supposed to have been the first day back to school after Christmas break. Instead, all the schools are closed through tomorrow.  So our unusually long break became even longer. That's a LOT of time we've spent together over the past 2 1/2 weeks!

I decided that if we were going to live through record breaking cold, we could learn something and make memories.  We came up with various science experiments  as a way to pass the time between bursts of cleaning and playing games of CLUE!
And so, I give you or day in pictures. Videos in the next post?

Yes, I let them go out in the cold...in the name of science!

Tossing hot water into frigid air

We made our own cloud and tiny bit of snow!

An egg

Cracked onto an old toaster pan

left to sit on our front porch, with an ice cube tray of water

In the time it took to go inside and remove our winter gear (about 4 minutes) the egg froze on the tray.

After a few hours, when we cleaned up our experiments, Katherine held the frozen egg.

Many people on Facebook suggested filling water balloons with water, but we didn't have water balloons. I found 1st birthday balloons in a box in our basement. Did you know that if you put water into regular balloons they don't expand? No, first you must blow up the balloon, and then find a way to get the water in without letting the air out. And if you want to add food coloring to the water? Your best bet is to squeeze that into the balloon BEFORE you blow it up and fill it with water. 

 The balloons did freeze, but not until after dark, so the big reveal on those will be tomorrow.

Another friend suggested freezing a soda can. We've had exploding soda in our garage, so I wasn't keen on the idea, but I figure the mess will be in the snow, and we won't need to clean it up.

The top of the can stretched first

Then the bottom of the can. This picture was about 6pm, 5 hours after leaving it outside. As of 10pm it still hasn't exploded. I'm afraid the girls will be disappointed if it is still intact in the morning.

This picture tells the story of much of our break. Santa brought the game CLUE and we've played it multiple times every day since Christmas. But tonight we had a fire. Bonus!

Katherine was disappointed that her first Prep squad gymnastics practice was cancelled tonight. So she taught herself how to fall backwards onto the couch into a backbend. She tells me it's the beginning of a back handspring. Oh boy!

The girls and I ended our night snuggled into the big chair watching TV. We didn't use the TV during the day - so we vegged out to Kung Fu Panda 2 and enjoyed being cozy.