Baby, It's Cold Outside!

Winter is knocking at the door.  It's 62 degree's in our house this morning, but we're holding out until November 1st before turning on our heat for two reasons:  We're "true" New Englander's (and everyone know's that "true" New Englander's don't turn their heat on until the 1st of November!) and the cost of oil is outrageous.  
We left our oil tank nearly empty when Spring arrived, thinking that the price of oil would go down significantly over the Summer.  We were wrong.  If anything, the price sky rocketed.  It's since come down a little bit but at $3.30 per gallon - which is the cheapest in our area - it's going to cost us over $900 to fill the tank this week.  Over $900.  And just like we end up doing every year, we will use our heat very frugally...probably keeping the house at 65 during the day, 63 at night...so that we'll "only" have to fill up a couple of more times through out the winter.  A couple of more times.  At $900+.  Yikes!!  I suppose it wouldn't be quite so bad if the house was kept warm but such is not the case.  It's won't be super cold, but we'll still be dressed in extra layers and will sleep with extra blankets on our beds.
We've started to clean up the backyard - putting away the summer toys, raking up the pine needles and just getting things ready for Winter.  I went through our coat closet and checked our inventory for winter coats, hats, mittens and snow boots. Everyone should be all set, with the exception of needing to buy Kyle bigger winter boots.
I'm already missing the long Summer days.  I took Kyle, the girls and two of Kyle's friends to the park late yesterday afternoon.  They had a lot of fun but we were only able to stay at the park for about an hour.  The sun was shining but goes down quickly in the evenings now and the wind was brutal.  If it had been a Summer day we would have stayed at the park for a minimum of 2 hours, if not longer.
During the Summer days we head outside first thing in the morning, coming indoors only for necessities.  The kids are able to burn off tons of energy while getting loads of fresh air.  In the Winter I feel like we're forced to go into hibernation mode.  Avoiding "cabin fever" seems near impossible but none of us particularly care for the cold weather.  When the first snow arrives the kids will go sledding, will which last for all of 30 minutes.  They might build a snowman or two but after that they'll have no want to play outside in the cold.  I'm hoping we can get to Vermont in a few months though because Jim and Kyle really enjoyed skiing last year and I think that Bella may be ready to give it a try this year. Jim found a great, inexpensive place for them to ski - a family owned place not too far from my Dad's house.
Until then I'll be working overtime trying to keep the kids - and myself! - from going crazy indoors.