After carefully considering this week's forecast, we pulled the kids out of school this afternoon to make a trip to skate through the forest. Janice drove Angie, Elizabeth and Matthew while I stayed home to watch Michael and get some work done.

It was pretty cold this morning and Amelia had cooking class this afternoon, so she didn't object when we decided that she would not be going along to skate with the others at Lac des Loups. Brendan stayed home too over Elizabeth's objections that at least one parent should come so that it would count as a "family excursion". He was worried that I would not be able to park at the community centre to pick up Amelia as the excessive accumulation of snow has made parking around here quite challenging, and I can't manage to walk very far in said snow.

The kids were very pleased to go - Matthew declared it his "favourite winter place in the world". Apparently they completed the 3km loop twice and had hot chocolate to drink!

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Amelia had her very first crazy hair day

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Even more snow today meant that the school buses were cancelled. It was a Wednesday though, which means Elizabeth has violin classes, hot dinners ordered and I usually pick up Elizabeth's friend from school to take her to ballet. Plus we have lots of work that needs dealing with, Amelia had school too and all in all we decided not to indulge in a snow day.

Turned out ballet was cancelled. The driving was pretty poor but we made it home okay and the kids enjoyed playing in the snow instead of their afternoon activities. Elizabeth and Olivia were very excited when I told them they got to have a playdate instead of dance.

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It hasn't happened before in thirty years or something, but there was both an extreme cold and winter storm warning today. That meant SNOW and COLD, which is a strange combination. It wasn't cold enough to deter the kids.

There's a snowman competition going until Family day, so even though it is really really cold outside Elizabeth and Matthew worked hard to make a pretty cute snowman beside the igloo. It snowed so much that the igloo is actually looking pretty decent.

We did discover a problem though. Apparently Mr Bunny (look closely at photo of sidewalk) has decided to use the igloo as a toilet.

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Yukiko's away in Japan looking after her aunt for a month, so we invited Chris and the girls over for Sunday dinner (lasagna).

I was just coming to sit down at my spot after doing something in the kitchen and somehow managed to catch my right baby toe on the side of the buffet. Yes, I kicked the cupboard. Hard. I knew immediately that whatever had just happened was bad.

My foot went completely numb but there was some pretty excruciating pain radiating up my leg at the same time. Elizabeth giggled "You look like a kangaroo" as I hopped to my place, hoping that I didn't pass out on the way there. An ice pack didn't help - I just felt like I was adding frostbite to my woes.

I surreptitiously checked my sock. No blood seeping through, so the chance of needing surgery seemed low. I decided to eat supper and get Erika to practice her first aid skills after. She looked a bit worried when I told her this.

Just then Janice walked in the door from her latest skate patrol shift on the canal. "I could use some first aid, I think" I told her. She took one look and confirmed that my toe was not attached at its customary angle. It was shorter, too.

In an effort to keep my mind off the incredible pain (less than my most recent root canal, more than most recent C-section) I posted a photo on social media. It's very interesting how many of my friends have broken toes, or known someone who has broken a toe. In any case, the ER was extremely quiet and I was sent to xray almost immediately. I think we spent less than ten minutes out in the hall before getting a room to ourselves. It was obviously where they sent the broken bones as it was covered in dried plaster bits.

The doctor injected the toe with lidocaine and then yanked on it hard until it made the right noises. There was popping and grinding. The lidocaine helped a bit, but YEOWCH! At least the toe was back where it belonged. It's been taped to his neighbour for support and I'm under orders to wear supportive shoes for the next couple of weeks. I don't really like wearing shoes, so that was terrible news. Also not excited by the realization that I can't wear a boot on that foot until it's healed.

Worse was the news that I can't skate for four to six weeks. No snowshoeing. Stay off my feet as much as possible for the first little while. Repeat x-ray to check healing in four weeks. Don't kick anything else. It's rare, but not unknown for the toe to need reducing a second time. I really don't want to do that part again.

Basically I've just torpedoed my entire Winterlude. At least I can still drive, but I'm pretty upset about the whole thing.

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Ottawa is setting records for cold. "Yay! We can do cold weather science" say my winter-loving kids. I was proud.

So we blew bubbles and made snow. Elizabeth wanted to try throwing the kettle water and got hot water on her mittens and was unimpressed.

Matthew had some technical challenges with his bubble mix freezing before he could blow bubbles, but they did like seeing the frozen bubble bits in the air.

We tried to do a new experiment "magic balloon" to demonstrate how air in a balloon shrinks in the cold and expands in the heat, but clearly the air inside the balloon wasn't hot enough and/or the deep freeze outside wasn't cold enough because it basically didn't change size.

It was too cold to stay out terribly long, so after we did our science the kids came inside and built forts.

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