Well our icy Monday turned into a full week of ice and snow. We were off work Monday, had a late start Tuesday and Wednesday (I made Frank drive me on Tuesday because I was scared of the icy roads), and then had an unexpected heavy snowstorm that shut down the city mid-day Friday. We went to work as usual Friday morning, and it had started snowing on my way in to work, but I really didn't think too much of it. By the time it got to 11:00, and the snow was falling harder, everyone at work started to freak out. Schools and day cares started to close early, and both Frank's and my work closed around lunch time. I had already heard some horror stories of people taking 30 minutes to go one block downtown, and my poor sister spent more than 3 hours driving home, so we decided to stay put and hope for some of the worst traffic to clear out. It worked, and we made it home in about 45 minutes, which is a pretty typical commute for us. By the time we got home, everything was covered in snow! It was so pretty. We got approximately 3 inches, and it was soft and powdery and perfect. I played with Frankie outside for awhile, and Frank took him sledding up at the high school down the street from our neighborhood.
On Saturday morning, I really wanted to take both kids up to the school to play in the snow and go sledding. But it had rained/sleeted overnight, and when we woke up, the beautiful snow had an icy layer on top. We decided to brave the roads and go anyway, and we made it out and had an awesome time sledding. Even Lily had fun, as long as her hands didn't touch the snow. After about 20 minutes, we were driving through the parking lot to turn around and go home, and we got stuck!! We were in Frank's Tahoe, and we slid backwards and were stuck in a ditch in the parking lot. Frank was really upset, but I tried to stay calm. We were only about a mile from our house, so we could have walked home if we needed to. I decided to get out of the car and try to push it while Frank put on the gas. It did not work, but two different people saw us and came to help. A high school kid in a Jeep used a cord to pull our car out, and another nice couple brought two bags of sand to help. We were only stuck for about 5 minutes before people came to help - just another reason I love living in this town.
After our little icy incident, we decided to stay in the rest of the day. We had a lot of good family time! Sunday we went to Maddy's birthday party at Kid mania, and we were all exhausted afterward. Allison and Rylie came over for a little while and got to play with crazy Lily. She is all over the place these days, and she was having a hard time understanding that she needed to be gentle with Rylie. Lily has started to sing, and she is sooo sweet when she does it. Right now it just sounds like "BAAAAAAA" "DAAAAAA" "BAAAAAA" over and over. She also LOVES to dance, and she definitely has favorite songs that she goes crazy for, including Carry Underwood "Something in the Water." She is obsessed with brushing her teeth. She is very independent, but she is also a very good listener. She is not having any tantrums yet, but she does get very upset if you try to take her ipad away!
Frankie's behavior has been much better lately. He is listening better, eating better, and generally being very helpful and pleasant. He is still very shy around people he doesn't know well. For example, at the birthday party today, he refused to sit in the room with all the kids and instead ate his pizza with the adults at our table. He is having a hard time with soccer, and I think the shyness again is the most inhibiting factor for him. He is great with his friends at school and people he knows well, but he is just very uneasy around new people. He is using his imagination all the time, and right now he says he wants to be a cowboy, firefighter, cleaner, painter when he grows up. His favorite toys are play doh, legos, his doctor kit, and his new swing set!
Here are some pictures from our snowy weekend:
