THE STORM OF THE CENTURY!

  So we were stuck in the house last weekend with 3 feet of snow! The Indy Seitz Families enjoyed making fun of our storm drama. But dealing with that much snow in that short of time is a big pain.  Tom and Scott managed to plow out our driveway and the sidewalk(and a small spot for Cookie to get outside in the backyard to go potty) all day Saturday and into Sunday.  I was busy doing laundry, housecleaning, baking and cooking. We invited our neighbor Dan over to watch football in the evening on Sunday. The main road was plowed through our neighborhood, but nothing else. I was just excited that the power did not go out so I could get something done while stuck in the house. Tom was happy to have his computer working in order to complete writing a paper for school. Scott was happy to have the internet to play video games online with his friends.

He was also happy to hear that school was closed the next day. Not only the next day, but the entire week! The kids got an unscheduled winter break. Even Allison had a few days off on the Eastern Shore as campus was shut down. It is mostly a commuter school. Our Bay Bridge had to be closed due to high winds and snow piles. The college students had all arrived on Thursday night to begin their Spring Semester on Monday morning. They had an extra few days to prepare(haha). Allison did not get much of a break since one of her profs. sent homework to them online. She was happy to hear that she received an A in her winter term management class. It was worth the extra effort, and now she has a lighter, but still busy spring course load.

 It was frustrating not knowing if the kids would be going back to school the next day. The school system kept sending out emails encouraging the students to find something constructive to do with their time. Scott kept up his studying. He had missed his last two midterms the week before when school shut down, so he still needed to study. He also kept busy with planning the boy scout camping trip and the upcoming meetings. At least he did not have to try and go into work. The sports club was closed for the weekend. He did still have a Boy Scout meeting that week. They went on as scheduled.  I was the only parent that attended the parent's meeting that Monday night since it was right around the corner from our house.

Our road did not get plowed until Monday morning. Then Scott and Tom had to head out and clear out the end of the driveway. One of our neighbors had foolishly attempted to drive down our road on Saturday night and got stuck in front of our driveway. He was busy trying to dig his car out of the way of the plow. The roads were almost all plowed by Monday, however, most were just one lane wide. It made driving to work Monday rather hazardous. The snow banks were so high you could not see around them to tell if cars were coming. And people were still trying to drive at their normal speeds, so by Monday afternoon there were many accidents on the road. But Tom and I managed to get to work-the entire week. And so the week long clean up and digging out began.

We also were both off on Friday, so I talked Tom into driving over to Sam's Club with me to buy a new kitchen table. We have been searching for a new kitchen table ever since we remodeled our house 12 years ago. It took that long for Tom and I to come to some type of agreement on cost and style. We finally found a table that we could both agree on. Less than $1000 and we both like the style. So we headed off to Sams Club to pick it up(quite an experience since most of the parking lot consisted of snow piles and lots of people out shopping and not knowing how or where to drive). But we got all 4, huge boxes home and Tom had to assemble it. We decided to save some money by picking it up ourselves and putting the table and chairs together. And it weighs a ton! But the chairs are very comfortable with leather seats and it is easier to sit down since it is long and narrow. I still would have liked a table with built in leaves in order to extend the size, but this table has a good length and if we wanted, can seat up to 8. Our old table was oval and just didn't fit into our new kitchen space very well. I spent the rest of the day breaking down the huge cardboard boxes and dragging them out to the street for recycling on Sat. and moving the old table into our play space. (We are running out of play space!).

Scott was back to his work schedule this past weekend. He was also given some online classes to complete from work. Allison took the same classes when she worked there, but in person. He was also scheduled to volunteer with the Cub Scout Klondike Event. However, they had to cancel due to the poor road conditions in the State Park where it is held. It is a Scout activity trail through a local State Park that is run by the older Scouts. Scott and Tom have been involved in the event and volunteered for many years. Due to limited parking and poor driving conditions in the park, they had to postpone it to the end of Feb. So Scott got to sleep in. He was then available to participate more in his Robotics Team. They are busy building their prototype robot for the upcoming competition. They were unable to get back into the school the weekend before as we were under a State of Emergency, but reopened their doors last weekend.  Apparently the county has to make sure that all 40,000 kids in our school district are able to attend school safely. That includes making sure all the buildings are secure(a few buildings had flat roof cave ins). Also that all entry/exit doors were cleared as well as parking lots and sidewalks(we have a lot of kids that walk to school). So they did not get back on track until the following Monday.

My mom skipped her Sr Center trips since they were closed. But we all managed to get out of the house last Sunday. We had to drop Scott off at work(the Sports Club was back on schedule) and we decided to pick up my mom and try out her new Scooter at the Outlet Mall. We returned the rental scooter a few weeks ago and decided to purchase a scooter for her to have when we were out on long trips. Her insurance would not cover the expense since she can walk more than 25ft, but Tom and I really found the scooter useful for her to accompany us on long treks, so we ordered her one of her own. They delivered the scooter with a bigger battery and large, attachable shopping basket on Friday evening. We loaded the scooter on the back of my van on a separate rack and headed out to the mall with mom in tow. Again, limited parking due to large piles of snow, and about a million people all dying to get out of the house! We managed to find parking(most handicapped parking spots were filled with snow piles-great). Mom had a wonderful time driving around the huge mall though, stopping in for a milkshake at Johnny Rockets and doing some window shopping. I needed some new batteries for watches and snow pants at the sporting goods store. We also had a lot of fun in Bed, Bath and Beyond looking at sale items. Then it was off to pick up Scott and drop off mom(along with her laundry).

I also had the opportunity to attend a special event at the Kennedy Center in DC on Saturday night. My neighbor has season tickets and was planning on attending the Sleeping Beauty ballet with her husband, but he had to travel out of state on business. I was welcome to the tickets as long as I drove! I have never driven to the Kennedy Center. You can take the train, but you have to change trains twice and then take a shuttle(makes for a long trip). Especially not good if you are in heels. I still opted to wear my velvet black pants and flats, just in case we got stuck or lost somewhere in DC. Jane opted for the dress and heels since she wasn't driving. We went out to dinner first, and then headed into DC. It was a unique driving experience but I was very proud of myself to have navigated the streets of DC, buried in snow and following the GPS. We parked under the Watergate building(yes, that Watergate which is next to the Kennedy Center). Looks like it has been turned into apartments and business offices from its infamous Nixon hotel history. The Kennedy Center sits on the Potomac River with a wide balcony for outside events. We ran up the front steps  and sat down at precisely 7pm when the ballet began. Jane reports if you are late, you have to stand in the back until intermission. And this was a long, 3 hr ballet with 3 intermissions. And rather uncomfortable seats.


Lots of Snow!

 and why we wear out our shovels!

Kennedy Center Lobby

But an amazing place to visit-people are either very well dressed or more casual like myself. The building is actually made up of  seven different theaters. They have many different types of shows and concerts all going on at the same time with staggered start and stop times. And the ballet was very good-retelling the story only in dance and music.They even threw in a few Fairy Tale characters like Little Red Riding Hood and Cinderella. I don't think Jane was too happy though when I hummed along to some of the music. How do you stop from humming along to a  Disney song? I think our Baltimore Hippodrome Theatre is a little more laid back. Not sure if she will invite me back, but I loved the experience nonetheless(Maybe next time I will get to wear the dress and heels!). More to Come!