Frigid February

I don’t think I’ve been more aware and grateful to have a nice warm house to live in than I was this morning at 5:00 am when I woke up b/c I heard a loud sound. As I was laying there in the dark, it sounded like Nick was taking a shower and I wondered why he was showering at 5 am. I got out of bed to go look and he was still in bed asleep. I realized the sound was coming from outside and opened the front door to see this. It had rained during the night and had turned into sleet/freezing rain and was just pounding down on the windows and side of the house with 40 mph winds. I went back to bed and was thinking of Autumn’s prayer last night when she said she was thankful for her dolls, her pillow, her sheets, and her walls. She was naming everything she could see by just looking around and I thought how thankful I was for walls as well to keep us protected from the elements of nature.

It made me think of how hard life must have been back in the Pioneer days and how just a few days ago it was 74 degrees and who would have guessed we would now have a layer of ice on the roads covered by skiffs of snow? Not only would they not have known how fast the weather would change, but they wouldn’t have had nice sturdy walls to protect them let alone a heater to warm the whole house. We are so incredibly blessed with modern day conveniences.

Autumn wanted to watch her Dora movie that Nick got her for her birthday b/c of the “bruha” (that’s Spanish for witch) in the movie. She was all curled up under the coffee table. I love it when she wears these footed jammies. She looks so cute in them, plus it makes her seem like my little baby again instead of my big and grown up 4 year old.

We had a healthy breakfast of cookies and bagels and then around 10:00, Dad called and said he was going to try and brave the roads so he could come get Nick’s car so he could take Nick to work later on today b/c we didn’t want Nick driving on the icy roads. We hurried and got dressed and got a few things together and he came to get us.

Before Dad got there, I told Nick to got out in the street to see how icy it was. He said it was pure ice and was able to skate around on it.

Dad made it to us safely in his truck (he was not about to take the Corvette out in these conditions) and said he only slid around a little bit. We stopped at WalMart really quick to get some milk and bananas and bread and we ended up renting 4 movies at Red Box. We went to check out and Uncle Curt snuck up behind Autumn and gave her a hug. She gave him a big love back and then when I told them to smile for a picture, Autumn wanted to make a funny face so he did it with her.

This is our view on the drive to Mom & Dad’s house. You can see that there were small areas where the 2 inches of ice had melted a little bit, but other than that all the white stuff is ice. I am SO THANKFUL that we didn’t slip or slide on the way home, b/c Nick’s car is front wheel drive and Dad drove really slowly and carefully.

As soon as we walked in the door, Mom had these little mini pigs in a blanket coming fresh out of the oven for us. They were so good and I’m glad we decided to weather out the storm at Mom & Dad’s house instead of ours. We watched Charlie St. Cloud (with Zac Efron), which was one of the 4 movies we rented at the Red Box. It was a good movie and we enjoyed it.

Autumn wanted to go outside and check out the snow. She thought we were going to be able to build a snowman but she didn’t realize it was snow that was hard as a rock. She wanted Papa to get her shovel so she could play in it. She didn’t care that it wasn't nice and powdery snow, she was just having a blast being out in it. Dad & I, on the other hand, were FREEZING and wanted to go back inside after about 10 minutes. There was a bitterly cold north wind that made the 22 degree temperature feel like –2 degrees.

We came back inside and Mom made some yummy chicken soup and also had some hot chocolate for us, which of course warmed us up. We watched Salt (with Angelina Jolie), which was a really good movie and had me guessing a lot. Dad took Nick to work at 3:00 and then went out to put a sign on a few of the clinics that he they were going to be closed due to the weather. They kept showing on the news that cars had slid off the road and that 18 wheelers had jack-knifed. Dad said that the road right outside of our sub-division was closed off and he had to take an alternate road b/c an 18 wheeler had slid off the road and blocked both lanes.

We watched Knight & A Day (with Tom Cruise & Cameron Diaz), which was pretty good b/c it was an action movie but also had some funny parts. There were so many parts that were totally unrealistic, but it was still good. It was a super lazy day of just watching TV & movies and eating. It was nice to sit on the love seat all cozy and warm in a blanket. I played Barbies with Autumn for a while and we played hide and seek for a little bit to keep from going stir crazy.

Dad went and picked up Nick from work at 7:00 and they made it home safely. Since it was Tuesday night, we watched Biggest Loser and then at 9:30, I put Autumn to bed and I laid down with her for a minute so she’d go to sleep. She was sound asleep and breathing deeply within 5 minutes. Since Dad and Nick had missed watching Knight & A Day, we are watching that.

I feel bad that the weather is so crappy for all these people that are coming for the Super Bowl. The problem is that it’s supposed to get down in the single digits tonight, so all the ice is going to stick around and anything that melted during the day is going to re-freeze overnight. I hope I won’t have to go into work tomorrow just b/c I don’t do well with driving on bad roads. We’ll see what happens.