Snowed IN!!!

We went up to my mom's house on the 20th and were most relieved to make it up the driveway.  At that point I fell completely in love with the new Suburban and 4 wheel drive!  Sunday a.m. around 9:30 (just as I was about to step into the shower) we lost power.  Out here that means water and sewage capabilities as well, since my mom's on a septic/well system.  SOOO... thank goodness for the prophet's counsel to have food storage.  We cooked on the propane BBQ and used paper plates.  We even made spaghetti in melted snow water!  As the toilets fluid levels rapidly rose (with 5 kids and 3 adults!) we had to think of a quick solution.  Dad took one of the toilet seats off and wired it to a bucket.  We placed it in a  semi-private place in the garage, and after using it were instructed to dump a shovelfull of snow on top to "flush".  Amazingly, it was so cold outside, the snow stayed frozen, so it was never all that unpleasant to use the "facilities".  Uncle Dick told mom about their potty solution when they're roughing it, and they nicknamed their bucket "the groover", so that's what we began to call the bucket.  *NICE*  Anyhoo, Taylor couldn't fly out on the 22nd, which was devastating to him, as he was stuck in a house with many children, a tiny fire in the fireplace, and an average of 51 degrees (by the time all was said and done, it was 47 degrees in here--  BRRRR).  The airport was closed that day, but re-opened on the 23rd.  Amazingly, his mom got him another ticket, but we still couldn't get out of mom's driveway.  SO, Owen said if we could get Taylor up to Forsythe, he would try to meet us.  We loaded Taylor's suitcase on the sled, and while he carried his huge duffel bag, Parker pulled the sled and Dad and I pushed it all the way down the driveway, up Victory, and to Forsythe.  It will always be quite a memory.  Later that day I finally started getting so cold I couldn't get warm, not to mention VERY upset because I hadn't finished the Christmas shopping and Christmas Eve was rapidly approaching with no end to the power outage and strandedness in sight.  Owen came and got the kids and me and we spent the night at their house.  Jeff arrived around 3:30 a.m.  He had headed up with a generator and some space heaters for mom and dad, but 205 was closed, so he came to Owen and Kathy's to get some sleep.  The next day we got Santa pix at the mall, which was eerily empty for a Christmas Eve day.  We took the kids to their father's house, and went to rescue mom and dad.  We ended up running some errands and sliding home to find the power FINALLY on.  YAY!!  Christmas day was quiet with the kids gone, but it snowed all day, so Jeff blew up all the tubes and mom, dad, Jeff and I sledded for a good two hours out on the hill.  After a snowball fight and a walk, we had our traditional prime rib dinner w/ Owen and Kathy and kids, then played games.  It was a quiet, but fun, and oh-so-white Christmas.

The First Blog

Yeah, yeah, so I'm the last one on the block to do the blog thing, but better late than never, eh? :) It's been SO fun to read all my friend's blogs, I love seeing all the kiddos and family activities, so thought I'd try my hand at this. We shall see...