Wordless Wednesday: Mr. Happy-Big-Nose*

*I don't mean to be misleading. We actually haven't had any snow this year. 

This pic is from last year, but I thought he was cute. 

And appropriate for the season.

Because there really should be snow by now. 

I mean, it's December! 

Come on, snow!

Snow and Sombreros

The Dashingly Handsome Sidekick had a birthday yesterday.

We celebrated with Mexican food, the entire family, a vanilla raspberry cake, and a very large sombrero.

(Krista V. - please note my son's Kellen Moore jersey. We got it at football camp last summer. And it's signed. Go ahead and drool.)

This week has just been weird. Tuesday and Wednesday we had snow delays and today they cancelled school all together. I'm not complaining. I love having my family home. But after almost a full no-school week for Thanksgiving (thanks to snow and delays and no snow tires) and another off-week this week,  the kids are sliding into vacation mode. They want to sleep in and go to bed late. There's no schedule to speak of. (No writing to speak of, either.) They're wild with cabin fever.

And my posts on this blog have been super lame.

Sorry.

The snow is melting. Maybe some warmer weather will zap some life back into this tired old brain of mine.

I can't promise, though. My two older girls are performing in the Nutcracker ballet next week, so even if the snow melts and school starts up again, I'm sure my brain will be just as tired. (But my girls will be beautiful and graceful; I'm so proud of them.)

In the meantime, however, Happy Birthday DHS!

I'll leave you with a photo of our snow-covered valley and hoarfrost encrusted trees.

And our cute little snowman (created on the first snow day, when snow was still a novelty).

Snow & Irrational Panic

This was yesterday. Beautiful, freshly-fallen snow.

There was a two-hour snow delay from school, but I decided to keep the kids home all day since I didn't want to get stuck on the hill in my minivan like last year.

Gabe was the first to get bundled up to go out in it. The cousins-down-the-hill had invited them over to sled in their yard, and so I sent him out bravely alone, down the back path to their house, telling him to stay off the roads as much as possible (due to skidding vehicles).

(Their house is down in that valley just beyond the line of arborvitae trees.)

After Gabe left, I started thinking: "I hope he gets there okay. I'd better call down there and make sure he made it. Make sure he's not lying in a crevice somewhere with a broken leg." (There are not many crevices in between our house and theirs, but you have to leave room for a mama's overactive imagination.)

Well, I didn't call down there. Instead, I busied myself in the kitchen. My older girls woke up and wanted to eat. Then they also wanted to head down to go sledding.

I bundled them up and sent them out, adding as an afterthought: "Olivia, help your little sister down the hill and if for some reason Gabe is not at the cousins' house, please call me so I can search the crevices for him."

Ten minutes later, Olivia came home to put on more clothes. About five minutes into this endeavor she mentioned, "Oh, and Anna's waiting down in the Taylor's yard so she didn't have to come up the hill."

"Where's Gabe?"

"I don't know. I didn't see him. The cousins were leaving when we got there."

"And you didn't see Gabe?"

"No, I didn't see him at all."

"He's not down playing in the cousins' yard?"

"No."

Now, usually, I'm not a freak-out-first-think-later type of person. Usually I would have used my brain instead of my emotions to make a rational decision about what to do next. However, due to recent sleep deprivation and I'm sure the added hormonal imbalance of being eight months pregnant, I totally flipped out.

"Quick! Get your clothes on! Sophie! We need to get dressed! We need to go out and find your brother who's lost in the snow!"

Several minutes later, Sophie, Olivia and I are slipping and sliding down the back path towards the cousins' house, checking the crevices. The path was very steep and covered in at least a foot of snow. After our first joint fall, Sophie was screaming. After our second joint fall, I was wailing like a banshee: "Olivia, please heeeelp me!" Olivia came to our rescue several times, saving me once from falling into a crevice.

We got down to the Taylor's yard, met up with Anna. I asked our neighbor if she'd seen Gabe, but she hadn't. We traipsed down the road toward the cousins' house. Sophie slipped on the icy road, and after that couldn't stop crying.

We arrived to find the cousins' car still in the driveway and most of the cousin population out in the front yard.

My first hollered question was: "Have you seen Gabe?"

Abby, the oldest, responded: "Aunt Amy, we can't play right now. We're leaving, but we'll be back in a few minutes to--"

"We are not here to play," I cried. "I want to know - have you seen Gabe?"

"Oh yeah, he's playing inside."

"What?"

"My mom just told him he has to leave, so he's getting his shoes on."

This is where the extent of my idiocy sunk in. I saw Gabe wrestling with his mittens in the doorway. My heart did that flip-flop of relief and ... the kind of frustration that comes after suffering through something completely unnecessary.

Morals to this story:
(1) Never rely completely on a nine-year-old's version of a story. They are usually a little confused.
(2) If there is snow on the ground, whenever possible use a phone to confirm said nine-year-old's story. (In this case, "the cousins are leaving" meant, "the cousins are leaving in the next half hour." For some reason, I heard it as: "the cousins are in the car, pulling out of the driveway.")
(3) Maybe it's better not to send a seven-year-old alone down a snowy slope when there are crevices involved.

Resolution:
We all survived. We limped back up the hill, but by road this time (because I realized everyone in our small town was staying home so there weren't a whole lot of skidding vehicles about). Sophie cried all the way. I looked like a bag-lady in my off-center beanie, my gaping coat, and yoga pants tucked into my boots. But we made it home alive. No one fell into a crevice. No bones were broken. No babies were prematurely born.

And for that, in this week when we focus on gratefulness, I am thankful.

Snow Adventure

I braved the ever-falling snow today. I packed Sophie and my mom in the minivan and took them to Safeway.

On the way I missed a stop sign, until my mom screamed, "There's a stop sign!" Our van came slipping to a halt.

A little further on I missed a stop light, until my mom screamed, "There's a stop light!" Our van lurched through the snow several more feet before stopping in the middle of the intersection.

I'm not usually that bad a driver. The only explanation I can give is that I was keeping my eyes on the road. Literally.

Today, the roads were continuous avenues of white, without any indication where an intersection began. The tree limbs were coated from tip to soil, each branch standing out like its own piece of artwork. Willows looked especially pretty, like white haired princesses. The snow continued to fall.

We slipped our way onto the freeway. Exiting, I almost slid us into a ditch because the exit ramp wasn't cleared and I didn't slow down enough.

Coming back was worse. I barely made it onto the freeway at all. By that time I was trembling. And praying. Praying hard. Oh Lord, let us get home. Baby screamed from her carseat all the way. I drove 40 miles an hour on the freeway and let the cars and trucks pass me on the left. My tires kept slipping. I honestly couldn't go any faster. And the snow still came down.

Eventually we made it to our hill. Up we went.

Close to the top we ground to a halt. I tried the gas again. The wheels spun.

"Stay here," I told my mom. "I'll get Aaron."

I ran up the hill, my boots marking in the freshly fallen snow. I came into the house looking like a snowman -- hair snowflecked, jacket dusted, boots encrusted.

Together Aaron and I headed back to the van. I sat behind the wheel and he tried to push. No go.

My mom took Baby up to the house, her scarf wrapped around her head like a babushka.

A kind neighbor who had seen me from his window, an elderly man with his jacket hanging open and a homemade snow shovel, arrived to dig my wheels out.

Dad and brother then arrived to help Aaron push.

People came to the intersection right ahead of me, saw me stuck and turned around to go the other way.

A snow plow trundled up the hill, snorting. He passed us, but stopped on his way back down to help me. The men grabbed handfuls of salt from the back of the plow to throw under my tires.

They pushed again. I shifted to a low gear and pressed the gas tentatively. That time, I made it to the top of the hill, only to end up on the side of the road next to our mailboxes.

My brother-in-law came in his truck. The four men together pushed the car down our gravel road and I barrelled down our driveway, straight into the open garage.

Home.

This is not the first time I've had the audacity to need rescuing on our hill and driveway.

The first time, I almost killed the man who came to put in our countertop. That was the first snow, and I parked in the driveway not knowing I wouldn't be able to get out again. My van slipped sideways and almost crashed into his truck. He threw his body in between the two and yelled, "Crank the wheel the other way!" That was the only way I knew I was turning it in the wrong direction.

Another time, on a day when we had helpers galore assisting at our house, there were about ten vehicles parked out front. My brother-in-law was parked at an angle behind me. I thought I could squeeze out without asking him to move. The ensuing fifty-seven-point turn landed me jack-knifed in between the retaining wall on the opposite side of our one-lane private road and the back wheel of my brother-in-law's truck. I was absolutely, totally stuck. We called all the men out of the house. After they finished laughing at me they managed to lift the tail of the truck and swing it around so it was out of my way. Thus, I was able to drive away with only a mild scrape on my bumper.

I'm not a bad driver. Maybe just inexperienced. And not good in snow or driveways.

Consider yourself warned.

Snow

today it snows
finally
warming us
covering
the cold blankness
the ting of frozen cement
the crunch of ice-grass
softening
the blast of wind

falls lightly
feathery
patterning
the ground
the ugly brown bush
the fallen flower
concealing
all our faults
brightly