Wow. You could say we got a little bit of snow. How about nearly 3 inches here in Howard County. Most everyone else had 2 inches. Most of the snow fell Friday night into Saturday afternoon. The sun actually came out in the early evening. Between Tom and myself, we managed to make a pathway to the street down the driveway, a pathway to our front door and Tom cleaned out a space in front of the garage doors. Allison made a small path out on our deck so Cookie could get out for a potty break. We also managed to clean out around 3 sides of my van parked in the driveway, but even if our driveway was cleared, we couldn't go anywhere since our street has not yet been cleared. It was amazing to watch the news reports and see the whole state come to a standstill.
Not so on Friday. Before the snow began, everyone was visiting the grocery stores and gas stations. Our station down the street actually ran out of gas by Friday morning. I stopped in to fill our tank for the snowblower and had to visit another station down the road. Fortunately I had already finished my big grocery shopping early in the week in preparation for the Super Bowl game. We had already planned on hosting the neighborhood football party. I was glad I had already picked up most of the food, although I did make one more party food pitstop on Friday morning(chips and soda). I also managed to get Cookie to her vet appointment Friday morning, and visited with Allison's english teacher before classes started. I wanted to get an idea of how the county assessments worked, and the tests are not allowed home so I had to preview it with the teacher. He was on a tight scheduled however since they decided to let the kids out 3 hours early on Friday in anticipation of the big snow. So Allison was home by 1130 and Scott needed picked up at 1230.
Tom on the other hand was supposed to fly into Baltimore Friday night. I had contacted him Thursday night and asked if he couldn't get an earlier flight home since the airport was already talking about closing, and flights were already cancelled. Tom was put on a standby flight Friday morning, but he thought if he missed the morning flight, he would be arriving on Saturday instead. I warned him that he probably would not get home until Sunday at best. Turns out, our neighbor flew to San Diego this weekend and was supposed to arrive Friday night. Instead, they are talking about a Monday arrival now. Tom was down in Huntsville Alabama and he said the weather really wasn't too bad where he was-just a light rain. But up here obviously it turned into a blizzard with an incredible amount of snow! Thankfully, he made the Friday morning flight and arrived before the snowstorm.
Not surprisingly, everything on our calendar this weekend was cancelled. Allison had planned on attending a party at the library for the opening of the Lightning Thief movie. She read the series, along with our neighbor's daughter, and the library was planning a free night of games and dinner and snacks. Fortunately, that activity was rescheduled for next Friday. Not surprising, her piano lessons were cancelled, along with our plans to complete our volunteer work for our free Disney tickets. That activity was rescheduled as well for next weekend. Not rescheduled was the wine tasting gala that Tom and I were invited to with our old neighbors. Their school puts on a fund raiser every other year which involves a whole lot of food and wine tasting. We had a wonderful time 2 years ago, and we were really looking forward to another great event. Oh well, we just have to be patient for another 2 years.
My guess is that Scott's school will cancel the school bowling event scheduled for tomorrow afternoon. Our neighbors wanted to know if we were cancelling our super bowl party too! Fortunately for us, our power has stayed on. But neighbors around the corner were left in the dark. They are bunking down on our street. Some of our neighbors don't feel like attempting the walk over to our house(older neighbors), and some traveled out of town this weekend and won't be returning any time soon! So it looks like we will be having a smaller gathering Sunday evening, which is fine for me.
And since we really couldn't go anywhere this weekend, it gave me lots of time to cook and clean and help the kids with their homework.
Sounds just like my week with the kids as Tom was out of town since last Sunday. I had a lot of running around to do during the week, including a few medical appts for Scott and myself. And we had a few inches of snow earlier in the week that kept schools from opening on time, so I had to drop the kids off in the morning before heading to work myself. Allison did manage to get her field hockey games in as well as Scott's gymnastics class. Looks like I just needed one more doctor visit since I ended up with pink eye at the end of the week.
I'm pretty sure it has something to do with the vast amounts of mold that were uncovered in our basement rehab gym this past week. Our new supervisor was busy reorganizing and located a large patch of mold growing behind a wallpapered section of the clinic. They thought a little paint would fix up everything until they peeled the wallpaper off the wall. Yuck. In less than one hour our clinic looked like a scene from ET complete with lots of plastic wrap and concerned looking administrators. However, I don't think it was fast enough since I have a lovely red eye. At least Tom and I have had our share of pink eye in the past, so I had some eye drops in the medicine cabinet, but I wouldn't mind getting checked out before heading back to work this week since pink eye is very catchy. It's bad enough that some nasty stomach bug is going around work. We have had to close several floors/buildings on campus to quarantine the residents with stomach flu. I just hope I can get the car out of the driveway sometime this week!
We are worried about our snow days. We only have 2 left, and the school system is threatening to take away the kids spring break. Of course Tom and I plan on taking the kids to California that week!