Here were are, still trying to manage from the weekend storm and they are calling for more tomorrow.   Even worse, they keep UPGRADING the estimates – once upon it a time it was 4 to 6″, now they are forecasting 10 to 20″!!!

Our street is plowed – at least one lane’s worth, but many others are nearly impassible.  Mike dug our minivan out over the weekend, but I didn’t try and get out until dinnertime tonight, when I dashed out to the store to restock the milk and a few other essentials.   When I came back to the house, I couldn’t back the minivan back in the driveway because the cleared area was so narrow.

Not looking forward to more snow!  Praying for the heat to stay on and for sanity to be maintained.   Here’s a few more pictures from Sunday.

Well, around 5pm, the snow stopped.  I think they called for it to last til late evening (maybe?).

Anywho. shortly after my post about how we were all hunky dory, the power went out.   Dang it.   We were out of power for about 2 hours and it just came back on.   Thank you, Jesus!  We would have been alright, but I definitely wasn’t looking forward to doing it “prairie style” (ala Laura and her Little House).

Since I’m updating, here’s a couple of snow video clips I took.   Enjoy them:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Off to put the kids to bed and watch “Seven Brides for Seven Brothers”.

“Bless your beautiful hide…. wherever you may be..”

ps -if you didn’t follow the link I included my last post, you simply must check this out.  It pretty much sums up how the media and the better part of our region reacts to a snowy forecast:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Well the blizzard has arrived, delivered on it’s promise, and hasn’t left yet.  The media is freaking out about it, but we are enjoying the novelty, for now.  (Ask me how I feel to be snowed in on Monday).

So, apparently a blizzard is heading our way.  Perhaps even The Mother of All Blizzards.

My local jurisdiction sent out an emergency alert warning, “Another severe winter storm, with near blizzard conditions, is forecast to hit our area Fri., Feb. 5 through Sat., Feb. 6. Be prepared to shelter in place for 3 to 5 days. Please stay off the roads….”  Zoiks!

Having grown up in this area, I am used to hearing forecasts that chronically oversell and under deliver snowstorms.  So I shrugged and went about my business.  But as I listened to the non-stop coverage that guaranteed imminent disaster, I began to drink the K@@l-aid.  A little.  Enough to think we ought to at least be prepared.   So, like every other fool in the area, I ran to the grocery store to stock up on a few “essentials”.    Thankfully, we were already well-stocked in the ice melt, sled and snow shovel department, because I hear those were selling out like hot cakes.  I went to the library and cleared their shelves of any DVD that looked remotely interested for grown-up or child.

The decision to cancel school came Thursday afternoon – at least 16 hours before the first sky was even forecast to arrive.  I raised my eyebrows and groused with every other parent when this morning dawned without a flake in the sky.  However, the snow arrived, right on schedule, around 10am.   Mike’s work closed down early, so he was home by lunch.

Now we are all home and ready to hunker down.   The wipers are up.

So we are ready for the snow.   Blizzard, are you going to deliver the promised 16″ to 24″?  Can’t wait to find out…

Sunday was a beautiful morning, with perfect conditions for sledding. Sunny, not too windy, and not so much snow that we couldn’t drive our minivan to the nearest bestest hill in our neighborhood. It took some effort to get all of the children into their snow gear and out the door, but finally, we made it to our destination (~1 mile away). Amazingly, everyone had a great time. There were a few spills, but mostly laughter and smiles.

I’ve mentioned before, that we typically go to a small cabin out near Front Royal over New Years with friends from college.  The good thing about the cabin was it was free, not too far away, and “rustic” enough that it was okay for everyone to bring their 17 dogs (I exaggerate, a tad).  The bad thing was it was small and short on bedrooms.  This year, we finally came to terms that we had outgrown our lil getaway, so we didn’t make our annual New Years trek.   But I still wanted to have my weekend getaway with my friends, so we began looking for other options.   We discovered that some of the Virginia State Parks have rental cabins and after a little digging, we booked a lodge that was big enough to hold our crowd.

Over MLK Weekend, we went to the James River State Park.  The have a collection of cabins, most are two or three bedrooms, but they also have two “lodges”, which are six bedrooms.   It perfectly suited to our needs.  They were “rustic” with mission style furniture, but also new and clean.  Dogs were allowed and there was plenty of room for everyone.  They didn’t have TVs or phones, which is good for “getting away from it all”, but we did have a plan in place to provide our own entertainment.   The Sunday forecast called for rain, pretty much all day.  So … one of my friends brought her projector, and the rest of us brought our Wii, video games and movies.   We were quite entertained playing games and watching movies.

It was a fun weekend of playing and hanging out, capped off with Adam’s birthday on Sunday.  It would be a fun park to come back to in the summertime, as it is on the James River, but I think we will also look for some cabin getaways a little closer to Northern VA (the trek to the James River park was about 4 hours – it is an hour south of Charlottesville).

Here’s the pictures from our weekend:

It was a fun weekend getaway!

You may recall, about two weeks ago, Adam won a trip to the ER, courtesy of his busted head.   In addition to stitches, he apparently came home with germs.   ER on Saturday, then happy and healthy all day Saturday and Sunday … until around dinner time.  Just as I was trying to coax some peas and corn into his mouth.  He gave me a funny look, made an odd gurgle, and proceeded to vomit.   So much for dinner (his and mine).  He puked twice more that night and then, seemed better after a day.

We continued on our merry way until Thursday, when Sam started complaining that his stomach hurt.  This did not phase as me as Sam often complains that his stomach hurts.  It “hurts” when he wakes up in the morning and he’s hungry.  It “hurts” when we “make” him eat too much dinner and it “hurts” when it wants dessert.  I should have connected the dots sooner, but the kind of hurt he was feeling became evident when he puked all over himself and me during afternoon nap.   After a shower and much rest, he seemed better the next day.     That would be Friday, when Wendy puked during the night.   I cleaned her up, without any help from Mike.  Although he wasn’t puking, he was down and out with other flu-like symptoms.  It was a tough week to be the mom.

We survived the weekend and by Sunday, everyone seemed to be back to normal.   Throughout this whole time, I had been vigilant about washing my hands and not eating or drinking any of the kids food.   On Sunday, I may have absentmindedly munched on a few goldfish left out in a bowl from snack time.   Monday night, I was enjoying a nice night of fellowship at my church’s MOPS group when my stomach started rumbling.  I thought maybe my belt was too tight after enjoying a hearty dinner.   I quickly decided otherwise and raced home.

I walked in the door, barely gave Mike a nod as I grabbed our “barf bowl” and headed up to our room.   In light of the week’s past events, I prepared myself by laying an old towel on my bed, placing the bucket in a handy location, and pulled my hair back in a bandanna.   My stomach was churning and knew what was to come.   I lay in bed writhing, willing my stomach to calm down, but I knew it wouldn’t.  I knew that puking would make it feel better, but I dreaded having all that dinner come back up.   After an hour in bed, I decided I could take no more.  I made for the porcelain throne and bid adieu to my meal.

I felt much better after that, but still had a restless night of sleep.  Mike took care of the kids in the morning so I could lay in bed.  I slept away the morning, roused myself to make the noontime preschool pick-up, then headed back home.  The kids ate Mickey Ds in the car and then we went in and I put everyone to bed, including moi.

Mike came home early to meet Wendy at the bus stop and handle the dinnertime hour.   By evening, I was feeling better and by Wednesday, I felt human again.

I hate being sick, and am thankful I don’t get sick often.  But I will say, it is a  good compassion builder.  I tend be short on empathy when my kids complain about not feeling well.  I’m more of a “Life is tough, suck it up!” kind of mom.  But after going through what they went through, I definitely will be treating them with an extra measure of kindness the next time the flu bug comes our way (hopefully not for a while!).

In the meantime, I hope we can stick with the gentler kinder version of bucket filling.

Last Saturday (8 days ago).  We had a snow day.  When we left our house in the morning, it had only just started to come down.

Fast forward a week to yesterday.  The snow has all but melted and our snowman is a distant memory — only a small mound of frozen mess as a reminder.

While Mike & I worked on getting our Christmas lights up (in the dark, cuz that’s how we roll), the kids had fun cannibalizing Frosty.