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Family and Friends - 21. page

Winter Concert

Eric is taking chorus in high school.  I’m not quite sure how he got into this class, probably the same way he got into Spanish class in middle school.  But he enjoys Spanish and likes chorus too.

Tonight was the Winter Concert at the high school.  I worry about this type of event, because you never know how he will do.  If there is a crying baby in the audience – which there often is at these school events – that can set him off.  Eric is capable of making quite a scene… I did not take him to the first concert of the year, because he wasn’t behaving very well and I just knew it wouldn’t be good.  But recently, he has been very good (probably for Santa), plus he said he wanted to go.  So, we gave it a shot.  He did super up on stage.  He didn’t sing, but I was just happy that he was well-behaved!  He did get upset later in the evening while the band was playing, but at least all went smoothly when he was on stage.  Yes, a loud baby in the audience.

Hopefully, these events will continue to get easier for him as he gets older.  He is also getting better at handling noise. The problem is that he has a very raw nervous system due to his cerebral palsy and loud sudden noises cause an exaggerated startle reflex.  It’s nothing that he can control, but hopefully he will continue to get better at handling them.

Anyway, it was a wonderful experience for him and I got some nice photos and video, but I can’t say that it was and enjoyable evening.  I’m always on pins and needles waiting for a melt down, but always happy when all goes well.

Here is a photo of Eric with the chorus.

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New England Shivers

New England shivers without power after ice storm

(CNN) — At least 800,000 customers in New England are still without electricity on Sunday after an ice storm ravaged the region, officials say.

President Bush has authorized federal aid by declaring a state of emergency in New Hampshire and Massachusetts.

Full Story

There is devastation all around us, but luckily we were spared here in the Blackstone Valley.  My sister is still without power; day 4 for her.   Here are a couple more photos.

Backyard, she lost all but one of her trees:

Backyard

 

Road
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Bush declares emergency in icy Massachusetts

A severe ice storm prompted President Bush to declare Saturday that a state of emergency exists in northern Massachusetts, a move that authorizes the use of federal aid to help the recovery effort.

Gov. Deval Patrick declared a statewide state of emergency on Friday in response to the storm, which struck Thursday and continued into Saturday.

By Saturday night, there were 180,000 customers without power, said James Mannion, deputy public information officer for the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency.

In addition, 750 National Guard troops were deployed in the affected area, he said.

“The big problems here are, obviously, the power outages,” he said.

Officials were working to clear roads so that power crews could get in.

Full story

Below is a photo of my sister’s driveway.  We were spared the ice here in Grafton as the temperature hovered just above freezing.  But folks north and west of us were not so lucky.  We had 3 friends stay with us Friday night and my sister and brother-in-law stayed over last night.

Ice Storm
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No School Today

Here’s a bit of a vent, but really I’m just testing this new version of WordPress at this new address…

This morning I got up at my usual week-day time of 4:30am, before the birds and even before the sun. I’m not a morning person and I hate getting up that early. But it takes me over two hours to get my boys up, dressed, fed and ready for school.

When I looked out the window, it was poring rain. The third straight day of rain, but as we say in New England, at least it’s not snow. I felt like crawling back into bed, but it’s Friday, one more day and I can sleep in for two mornings. It was raining hard and very windy, so the first thing I did after turning on my coffee and computer was check the school status on the web; there it was in green “school is open.” It wasn’t until my work was finished that I got the automated call that school was canceled. Five minutes later the van pulled up to pick up the twins. The van had already picked up one student! The driver – and apparently the child’s mother – also had no idea there was no school. It took me another 45 minutes to get the boys out of their chairs and braces and back to bed. grrrrr!

I understand that sometimes it’s a tough call deciding whether or not to cancel school. But Grafton is notoriously late canceling. I just wish they would cancel earlier like other districts, for the poor unfortunate soles like myself, who’s day starts very early.

As it turned out, the temperature was hovering around freezing and many cities and towns around us had bad ice storms. There are lots of trees down and thousands without power throughout the state. It actually turned out to be a fairly nice day here in Grafton. Once the rain stopped, the sun came out and we still had power. But many of our friends were not so lucky. We have 3 of them spending the night tonight because they have no power and worse, no heat.

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