Snowcation!

We had an unplanned vacation last week. Snow will do that for you when you work in education. According to our local weathermen we had the biggest snow since 2003. Vicki was in her last month of pregnancy with Nate back then and remembers being a bit worried about getting to the hospital in the event he came early.

Monday before last (the 18th) was already a holiday with Martin Luther King Day and the forecast showed two snow events looming on the horizon. We are never sure how much stock to put into these predictions because so many times we hear that the upcoming snow will pack an inch or two and we only get a dusting. That was sort of the case for the first system that came through Wednesday morning. We got something like a half inch of sleet/snow with that but it made everything slick enough that we got out of school.

Ben has really wanted to get the driving experience so as soon as he got up he wanted to go for a spin. We went over to check on Mom. He did pretty well for his first slick road driving.

While there Ben made a quick snowman by stacking three snowballs. I squatted down and took a low angle shot of it with Mom standing at her door in the background and texted it off for family to see. Funny thing was that the perspective really threw Vicki off. We took supper over there that night and when she got there she was shocked to see he snowman was only 14" high.

We wound up missing school last Thursday due to icy back roads. The main roads were pretty clear. What had everyone's attention was the timing of the next snow. It was predicted to get here late Friday afternoon starting with rain before converting to snow. When Vicki got home from work and grocery shopping that night she declared, "I don't care if it snows or not we have to eat at home for the next week."

It was snowing here by 6:00 am last Friday morning and it snowed all day. Our best guess is that we got 6"-7", but it's sort of hard to tell because the wind (which gusted to 20 mph) caused a lot of drifting. Many of our friends from church were reporting deeper snow on Facebook. There were places in our yard that were up to my knees while others were very shallow. This shut everything down. TDOT was simply overwhelmed. They had to concentrate on the interstates and we didn't see them scrape the highway in front of the house until Sunday. As a result there was no mail or newspaper until Monday. It was a good thing Vicki stocked up because several stuck trailer trucks had the highway closed. We could get to Mom's and back but from what we understand the bridge to Cross Plains was one of several places along 25 that were closed.

The boys got out Saturday and headed back to where the big pond used to be to do some sledding. They said the snow was really deep along the trees. We all got out Saturday to play. We built a snowman. He turned out to be about 3' tall because the snow wasn't packing. Then we decided to go exploring across the road a bit. We took supper over to Mom's almost every night and played Spades with her before returning home.

Sunday brought some warmer temps but not enough for anyone to have church. That's when we starting seeing our friends complain of cabin fever on Facebook (which Ben mistakenly called hay fever). I can't say that I have cabin fever yet. I've enjoyed being off and having some time to get things done at home. And I enjoy stepping back into the routine of life once again--except for the getting up at 4:30 part. I miss sleeping in.

The boys and I went back to school Tuesday but the icy back roads kept Robertson County (and thus Jenna) home another day. We still have bits of lingering snow here and there as a reminder of last week. Our 3’ tall snowman we built is now a lump of snow that’s about the size of my shoe. There’s something sad to me about watching a good snowman suffer a slow death.

Joe