Our Winter Wonderland Adventure

Please forgive me, I did not mean to be a tease or keep anyone in suspense! I honestly thought we would just get a little snow Friday afternoon, take a few pictures, upload them, and post them to my blog the next morning.

Instead, our "little snow" turned into a snow/sleet/freezing rain/ice/more snow mix that turned our neighborhood into an ice skating rink. And the sun didn't decide to come out any melt anything until later today. So instead of uploading just a few pictures from Friday, I get to unload a whole bunch in one post  from our entire weekend!

It all started Friday afternoon around 2:30 PM....

My mother was kind enough to offer to go pick up Jaina on Friday afternoon from school, so Jayce and I were taking advantage of the extra time by eating snacks on the couch and watching Calliou. Jayce's therapist Ms. Kim was scheduled to come at 3:00 that day. The weatherman had predicted a "wintry mix" to start sometime after midnight. It was quite a surprise to have Jaina call us from Gray's cell phone to say, "HEY! Go look out the window right now!!"

It was snowing! Not sleeting, not freezing rain, but actual flakes. They were tiny flurries at first, but then big flakes started coming down. Watching snow fall always weirds me out a bit because it looks like it should be making a sound!

After Ms. Kim left, Jayce wanted to go outside in it. It was barely sticking at all.

Then a few minutes later, Gray pulled up with Jaina in her truck. She wasn't wearing a coat or anything!

I made her go inside and at least pretend that she was dressed for winter weather.

 

I also had her take the dog out for a walk as well. Alli doesn't like to pee in the snow, so I knew she had better get her chance before it started sticking!

 

Unfortunately, the snow stopped falling and in its place was nasty cold wet sleet :( Its definitely not as fun to play in sleet, so we went inside. My mom helped Jaina pack her suitcase and I kissed them goodbye. It was Jaina's turn to spend the night with her Grandma and she was excited at the prospect of getting "snowed in". My mom said that as soon as they were about 10 miles from our house, there wasn't a drop of precipitation anywhere. It turns out that only our northern area got that little bit of afternoon snow!

Soon it was bedtime and we all settled down for the night. Jayce was scared to sleep by himself (thanks to a big sister that told him that monsters live in the closet, which was a ploy to get Jayce to agree to sleep with her because she was the one really scared!) so I let him climb in bed with me while I read a novel. The next thing I knew, Brian was waking me up to watch a movie with him at almost 10 PM. I tried to watch it, but was way too tired, so I went back to bed. I moved Jayce to the floor (where I had piled blankets up for him) and didn't even hear Brian come to bed.

I was woken up at 3:00 AM when Jayce sat straight up and said, "WHY AM I ON THE FLOOR? DADDY PUSHED ME OFF THE BED!" If it hadn't been 3 AM, it would have been quite comical. I held out my arms for Jayce to crawl back in bed with us and we all three tried to settle back down to sleep. Jayce and Brian had no problems with that. It was me who ended up with insomnia. That's very common for me when I get woken up in the middle of the night.

The next morning, the yard was covered in ice. Everything sparkled. It was so beautiful! Brian is not one to worry about driving in icy conditions (like most men?) so he suggested that my mom meet us somewhere for lunch so we could collect Jaina back. Except that the roads really were icy. So icy, in fact, that my mom could not get her truck up her driveway onto the main road. I was all set to leave Jaina there all weekend, but Jayce and Jaina were having separation anxiety and each one wanted the other to be with them. It was quite sweet. Jayce called Jaina on the phone at least 3 or 4 times to say, "Can you come home now?"

We agreed to come pick Jaina up. Then we realized how bad the roads were in our neighborhood. And where we live has tons of steep hills. It was NOT fun getting out of our neighborhood, but once we were on main roads, it was okay. The DOT had sanded and salted a lot of the main highways, so as long as we stayed off the back roads, it wasn't too bad.

We went to pick up Jaina and then went to Costco for lunch and groceries. While we were out, we agreed to pick up Jaina's friend Eva who had wanted to spend the night with us. The girls were so excited!

But even more excited to find out a few hours later that it was snowing again!

 

 

Jayce decided he liked eating the snow off his gloves. Um, isn't snow dirty because of air pollution?

 

  

And then it got dark, so we called everyone in for the night. I fell asleep with Jayce at 8 PM (always been an occupational hazard for me! Kids' bedtime is usually when mom is tired, too!) and left Brian to deal with the girls. He ended up coming to bed at 10:30 PM after telling the girls they needed to turn off the TV in the bonus room soon.

I was awoken at 11:30 to Jaina telling me that Eva was sick and needed to go home. By then, the roads had frozen again and the temps were only in the 20's. I called her mom and dad and Eva, crying hysterically, begged them to come get her. It took them 45 minutes to arrive safely, when it usually takes no more than 15 minutes.

However, they couldn't get up the hill by our house. I had to wake Brian up to help push the van. The tires just spun and spun and their van would reverse back down the opposite end of the street a little more each time. I was set for them to just all spend the night, but the men were determined to make it work. Brian remembered the play sand we had saved for the kids' sandbox this summer. It helped to move up them the hill some, but soon we ran out and were almost out of ideas as well.

Then we decided to try pouring hot water on the van's tires to dislodge the packed ice in the treads. Except that carrying hot water in buckets on an ice rink driveway was doomed to end in disaster. Brian is very upset that his car washing bucket that he's had longer than me is now in the trash. And he has a very nice hurt leg to go with it.

About an hour later, Eva's parents get the van out of our neighborhood and make it safely home. I tuck Jaina into bed and crawl into my bed as well. Just to be awoken by Jayce a few hours later who wanted to know why he was on the floor again. I said, "There's no room in the bed! Just sleep on the floor!" and he seemed to accept this and went back to sleep. But I didn't. (sigh)

We woke up the next morning (this morning) to the sun shining bright. We knew the snow and ice would melt shortly, so we got outside as soon as breakfast was finished.

 

 

  

  

  

Now I'm off to bed! 2 hour delay in the morning! WOO HOO! Now if only my kids could sleep late!