"Snowmaggedon" Ends!

The storm is finally over! Hurray! I've heard several different numbers, but it sounds like we got roughly 23 inches. It's the 4th biggest storm in the area's recorded history (bumping December's blizzard to #8). Now the digging begins. But not for us because Drew's flight was delayed an entire day. Totally sucks. Incidentally the weather guy pointed out that 7 of the 10 storms have been in February so I'm thinking February is not a good month Drew to take future ski trips.

Today wasn't too bad. Liz and I even ventured outside a bit during Lainey's nap to dump some garbage and survey the damage. Still, the vast majority of the day was spent inside.

Alaina threw a huge fit each time I tried to put her pants on. Finally, I thought why am forcing this if we're just sitting home today? So I gave in. Naturally she was excited to put on socks and slippers. Yesterday Lizzie watched a lot of t.v. Today I tried to do better. We finally did our February calendar. Then we painted our toenails and made Valentine place mats.

Lizzie also decorated her Valentine box for school and addressed her Valentines (we neglected to purchase any last week so today we had to resort to homemade ones).

Mostly we did a lot of art.

Alaina loved it. And she made a huge mess.

She did pretty well with the markers so I let her try stamps.

It was significantly messier.

Oh, and Alaina, the girl-who-regularly-refused-to-take-a-bottle, saw me packing one away last night and wanted to try it. It's all she used today.Before putting the girls to bed, we Skyped with Drew. Notice Alaina's cheeks. I simply could not remove all the ink.

A Preview

Andrew, this is just a little taste of what you'll be dealing with tomorrow evening (perhaps your expression will be similar to Elizabeth's).

This is what things looked like as of noon. Remember, we expect another ten hours of snowfall.

Lizzie started cleaning off the van for you . . .

But, then we got snow in our boots and our ankles were freezing so we went back inside.

Oh, and some idiot abandoned their SUV in the middle of the street. Hopefully they'll manage to move it before the plows come.

After our outdoor excursion we warmed up with pizza and hot chocolate, and we promise the same to you when you need a break from clearing snow.

Day 1 of The Storm

Well, we survived day one of the snow storm. Nothing exciting. Lots of t.v., computer games, and housework (despite my grand ideas of arts and crafts).

Pleasant moments: the girls played nicely together in the tub and their room, Alaina jabbered happily, Liz did her math homework without me, and ate dinner with minimal complaints. She pretended the peaches were candy, saying to herself, "I had these before and they were good. I like this candy." to psych herself up before the first bite (after a taste she said in surprise, "These do taste like candy!").

Unpleasant moments: Alaina inexplicably woke at 5:30 a.m. (instead of 7 as usual, ugh), then she fell asleep on the way to the gym so we had to abandon our only attempted outing. Later she woke me from my cat nap with a very hard head butt and peed on my favorite throw pillow. Good thing she is so adorable otherwise.

It's hard to believe that one week ago we were relaxing at Nana's house. One of my favorite moments there: Alaina took a trash can with her up the stairs, painstakingly moving it up a stair, then climbing up one, moving the can up a stair, climbing up one, and so on.

ARGH!

No snow shovels. They are sold out everywhere I checked which isn't super surprising since we're apparently getting a monster snow storm tomorrow. The most frustrating thing is that I saw shovels at Giant a couple weeks ago and inexplicably did not buy one. Argh! What was I thinking?!

Speaking of stupid people and big storms, I went to Costco with the girls this evening and it was a madhouse! I have always heard about how the people freak out and race to the stores right before storms, but this is my first time experiencing it myself. I want to note, however, that I was not there because of impending storm, so much as a need to do the usual fridge restocking after a week away.

Honestly, I'm kind of dreading this weekend. I anticipate being stuck at home for three days and am not sure how Drew will get home from the airport Sunday night. Lizzie, on the other hand, is over the moon about the school cancellation (I would be too if I was six).

We finally made it home last night with the usual carload of what Drew affectionately calls "crap." Now we just need him to come home and unload the big stuff. Thanks again Mom for letting us stay with you, sewing for me, watching the girls so I could sleep in sometimes, telling Lizzie stories till she fell asleep at night, and carting us around for two extra days while our car was in the shop.Of course it sounds like we got home just in time for a nasty storm. Now I just need to get a hold of a snow shovel . . .

Still in South Carolina . . .

I intended to drive back to DC Monday morning but my van was making a really weird noise so Andrew talked me into getting it checked out first. Naturally it had to be fixed and of course the necessary part was not available till Tuesday morning which turned into Tuesday afternoon. Argh! . . . It's finally fixed now and I'm heading home tomorrow morning! Since we were here an extra day we decided to do something fun: visit the local bounce house.

Ground Hogs Day

11 years ago Andrew asked me to marry him. It was very sweet and I'm so happy he asked and I said yes. Happy Engagement/Ground Hogs Day Honey!