Snowdays

Storm Q did her best and we took all she could give and had a blast!

The kids were out of school for two days and we got to hang out and play in the snow.  After I got everyone all bundled up, I finally made it outside planning on spending a good amount of time shoveling our driveway.  We got over 9 inches of accumulation at our house and with our double wide, extra long driveway, I knew Rusty and I would have our work cut out for us.  But our neighbor, Susan, bless her, came over with her snow blower and blew most of it off our driveway.  I had a killer back ache later that night.  I can't even begin to imagine what kind of pain I'd still be in if we had to do it all by ourselves.  Thank you, Susan!!! She even did a portion of our side walk, our neighbors to the east and across the street. What a woman!

 Cade busied himself getting our sledding hill ready for launch.

Rusty working his lower back.

 Lydia couldn't wait to get in the snow.

I don't think she's seen this much before.

 Loving it.

 This is why Rusty and I will never grow up.

 Testing out their track.

 Lydia was super excited to get her turn.

 She looked so cute going down the track.

 Like a little penguin the whole way down.

 The whole time we were outside I kept getting whiffs of natural gas.  With the fatal explosion that happened only days ago in KC, I wasn't taking any chances and called KG&E.  The obviously weren't either and sent out two techs immediately.  The first guy comes barreling around the corner going waay too fast for conditions and he slides right into the curb across the street and gets stuck.  He only tries one time to get unstuck then cuts the engine and starts heading our way like it was hi plan all along to park one house over and across the street.  He checked the area for any leaks with some crazy gas detector that reminded of something from Ghostbusters.  He didn't detect anything, but he did smell what we smelled and attributed it to unburned gas from our furnace.  Said it was fine.  Nothing to worry about, he says.  As long as it's burning with white smoke.  Like we're holding some sort of conclave over here, with the white smoke.  Sheesh.  We'll see.  Anyway, he and Rusty go around back to check the meter and such when ANOTHER KG&E truck comes barreling around the corner and guess what?  Yep.  He, too, gets stuck.  I'm serious.  I can't make this stuff up, folks!  This guys tries a few times to get unstuck but only manages to back up and get stuck again.  Then Rusty and guy #1 come back to the front and I send Rusty with the shovel to help these poor guys.  Only when WE call for a gas leak do the people coming to help us end up needing help. 

 So they try to dig this guy out.

 Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

 Cade decides snowboarding sounds like a good idea.

 Gravity thinks otherwise.

 Cade felt gravity's effect immediately.

 The guys were still trying to get guy #2 freed without much luck.

So after much trying, he gets free only to get stuck again right in the middle of the street.  Come on, KB&E.  Couldn't you spring for all wheel drive on a few of your trucks???

 At this point I'm thinking this is a lesson in futility.

 Free at last!  Free at last!  Thank god almighty, he is free at last!

 Now back to guy #1.  You know this is going easy now, right?

Wrong.  He gets stuck facing the opposite way. At this point, I felt like I had stepped into Bazaaro world.

 I'm sure I don't have to tell you that this didn't end well, either.

 When this action sequence was going on, I actually had my camera set on the video record setting.  You know.  Just in case.

 Fortunately, or unfortunately, depending how you look at it, I didn't end up recording any footage. Guy #1 did, however, end up getting stuck one more time before finally breaking free of the black hole that is our neighborhood.