Frosty Friday

Yesterday I was able to go into work, but what usually takes me 30 minutes to drive to work took me an hour and a half b/c of the roads.  The main highway wasn’t bad b/c there were grooves in the ice where other cars had driven.  But, the bridges were completely iced over still and everyone had to slow down to a crawl to go across the overpasses.  I finally made it to work and checked the emails and returned some phone calls and then left at 3:30 to make it home.

I got home and Mom had made hamburger helper for dinner for Nick & Autumn & I, b/c she and Dad went to dinner at Cheddars with Pam & Dave who were bringing a guy from their ward up here for a job interview.  We spent the evening watching American Idol and just hanging out.  We were all pretty tired and went to bed around 9:30.

We woke up this morning to this view!  A blanket of white on top of all the ice.

Yep, 4 1/2 inches of snow.  Poor Nick had to be to work at 6:00 am, so Dad was a champ and got up and took him.  We woke up at 8:30 and Dad wasn’t home yet, which worried me.  We called him and on his way home, he saw someone off in a ditch and stopped to see if he could help.  The man said he was on his way home from working the night shift and had been stranded there since 4:00 am for 2 1/2 hours, was out of gas, and was freezing.  Dad offered to bring him back to our house until a tow truck could get to him, but he begged Dad to take him home, which was about 15 minutes away.  Dad took him home and it took an hour.  The man was so grateful and offered to pay Dad, but of course Dad said no.

A lot of people outside of Texas think we’re such whimps b/c we can’t drive a little snow.  What they don’t realize is that we’re talking about ice here, not just snow.  For example, look at this towel we had hanging up outside that fell onto the ground in the wind.  It is so frozen that we could put it upright against the wall and it still held its shape.

We had Texas shaped waffles for breakfast again.  Dave called his friend that they brought up for his interview and he was just going to borrow someone’s minivan to get to his interview.  Dave has 4 wheel drive on his truck, so he got dressed really quickly and went to take his friend to the interview.  He is also a Good Samaritan like Dad.  I love looking at the snow b/c it is so pretty and I’m so glad that I can stay inside where it’s warm.

After being cooped up inside for a while, Autumn wanted to go outside and “help” Papa shovel the snow.  She had fun sweeping the snow off of the sidewalk.  That is, until she slipped and fell and got snow on her gloves and pants and had had enough and wanted to come back in.

We had to find some things to keep us from going stir crazy.  Autumn wanted Dad to play Legos with her, but we couldn’t have such small pieces around with Baby Colton, so Dad got out the Lincoln Logs.

I think he had more fun with them than Autumn did.  He used every single Lincoln Log we had and built this awesome tower.  We watched Déjà Vu (w/ Denzel Washington) but had to keep stopping it b/c it’s one of those movies where you have to pay attention and we kept getting interrupted by Autumn and the baby.  Mom & I made some super yummy Cowboy soup (soup with hamburger, tomatoes, carrots, corn) and garlic bread.  It was the perfect way to warm up on a cold day.  Mom & Dad left to go get Nick from work at 2:00 and get out of the house so Mom wouldn’t go stir crazy.  Pam & Dave left to go to the mall to walk around.

Mom & Dad got back with Nick and we watched True Grit (the old one w/ John Wayne).  We only watched about 30 minutes of it and then turned it off b/c Dad fell asleep on the couch and none of the rest of us wanted to watch it.  Mom & Nick put on The Other Guys (with Will Ferrell & Mark Walberg), but I wasn’t into it so I went and watched a Dora show with Autumn.  That’s pretty much all we did all evening.  Dad & Dave went to pick up Uncle Stacy at the airport at 11:00 pm b/c Dave’s truck has 4 wheel drive, and the rest of us went to bed.

Also, congratulations to Nicole & Jason on their new baby girl, Khloe, that was born this morning.  Autumn now has 5 half siblings and I always worry about her not knowing them or having a relationship with them.  That’s just one of the many reasons as to why I’ve kept in touch with Mindi and Ashley.  But, I guess that will be up to Autumn to decide if she wants to have a relationship with all of her 1/2 siblings when she’s older.