Leap Year & Sadie Hawkins 2008- FIRE!

My cute sister-in-law sent this lil explanation out to the family of Feb 29, Leap Year/Sadie Hawkins day. I found it quite interesting and thought I'd post it. (after all this is also my journal. :))

"The original Roman 355 calendar had an extra 22-day month every few years to maintain the correct seasonal changes. By the time Julius Caesar took reign, the seasons no longer occurred during the same months they once had. Panicking, he remedied this by 44 B.C. by tossing the extra month and adding the extra days to a few months instead. He threw in a month in honor of himself (Julius - July) and died a happy man. However, still creating seasonal confusion, the calendar was changed once again first from an extra day every 3 years, to one every 4 years in 8 A.D. It was then finally perfected with some complicated logic by Pope Gregory XIII in 1582. He determined that Leap day should fall on any year divisible by 4 but not 100 (except when the year is divisible by 400), setting up the calendar nearly identical to Mother Nature. Thus, today
our year is 365.2425 days, off from our solar year by .00031, or one day's error over 4,000 years."

"If you are a woman, wait no longer for that engagement ring - today, Sadie Hawkins day, is your day to propose marriage. This tradition originates in Ireland in the 5th Century, when St.Bridget convinced St.Patrick to allow one day that a woman could propose. If the man refused, he was fined (incidentally, St.Bridget proposed to St.Patrick that day, he said no). 1,600 years later, the fine has been ousted, but women still have only this one day every four years set aside to profess their love and commitment for the men in their lives. Again, just how far we have come?"
http://www.mystro.com/leap.htm

On a more personal note already at 9:45 this morning it's been busy. As McKenna was getting on the bus the driver pointed out to some very thick black smoke at the top of the hill, not too far away. As the bus drove away with Tyler on my hip, my pajamas still on and having not touched my hair or face yet that morning (it was only 9 am all focus being on the kids thus far) and a video camera in hand (at John's request ) I decided to just walk part of the way up the hill. As I got closer I realized that it was very close to if not a friend of our's home, who also happens to be my kids pediatrician. A lil freaked out I kept moving, it is actually a beautiful morning with the sun shining and already 50 degrees. Every once in a while you'd hear a lil explosion and our quiet little hill became quite busy at those who were as curious as I was. Nothing like a disaster to bring the people out...and together, everyone being quite friendly to one another. A nice man stopped his car and I asked him which house it was, he offered me a ride up the rest of the hill and being paniked and obviously not thinking I got in. It wasn't until we were moving and he was chatting to Tyler and telling her how pretty she was that I realized how dumb I was. I had just done the very thing I tell my kids NOT to do, get in the car with a stranger. We only rode about 1/4th of a mile before I jumped out to run across the field. A lil relieved it was not our friends house but his next door neighbor which is still very sad. House fires are awful for anyone (despite the value of the property around here we almost wish our house would burn so we could start over) and this is actually the 2nd one I have seen close enough to see flames in the last 6 months. I'll download the footage and try to figure out how to post it...but I'm still learning how to do this whole blogging thing.

PS-There is now a VERY LOUD Helicopter hovering just above us, I think we might have made the noontime news. Wish it were happier news that was being spread!

Happy February 29th, 2008- LEAP YEAR!