Ice Ice Baby!

All weekend, the TV weather guys were getting psyched up about the big ice storm coming our way. I've lived in Arkansas most of my life and I know better than to believe it until I see it. Well...I've seen it.

We went to school on Monday just like normal. By noon, people were starting to get a little antsy. The radar wasn't looking good. Rudy called and said that Fayetteville was dismissing early so the ice wouldn't hit while the buses were running. Not long after that, our principal came over the intercom and said that we would be dismissing at 2:00. By 2:00, things were full-blown crazy at the school. We have so many teachers who live in Fayetteville and had a 20-30 minute drive ahead of them, so I stayed for a while to help get the kids home. At 2:40, I had to leave to get Caleb, b/c his school was closing at 3:00. I scraped my windshield and eased my way to his school, then skated across the parking lot to pick him up. We were almost home when a truck in front of us did a 360 and ended up in the ditch. I white-knuckled it the rest of the way and have never been so glad to see my garage. At that point, all we had was some freezing rain, which was creating black ice on the roads. Rudy stopped at Lowe's on the way home to get de-icer for our sidewalk. He also got candles and a good flashlight in case we lost power. We watched all night as the freezing rain and sleet continued. We both got calls pretty early in the evening that we would not be having school on Tuesday.

Tuesday morning (1/27/09):

We woke up and looked out the window to see a completely glazed over world. Here's what it looked like at 9:15, when I finally got the camera. (These pictures are taken through our windows. I wasn't about to go out in that mess!)

Here's the view from our front door.

This is the Hallelujah Hog on our back porch.

He was celebrating my first snow day of the school year. :)

This is Caleb's playset in the backyard.

We stayed inside all day. Rudy's back has been out since the weekend, so he's been having a hard time getting around, but he graciously relieved me for a nap while he played with, fed and put Caleb down for his nap. I slept for four hours! When I woke up, the ice hadn't stopped accumulating. It hadn't even slowed down. Here's what it looked like at 3:15.

Again...the view from the front door. Notice the difference in the icicles and the sidewalk.

And, here's the Hallelujah Hog. He didn't have much to cheer about with this much ice on his head. (Not to mention how poorly the basketball team has been playing...)Here's the afternoon shot of the playset. It'll be a while before we're back out there again.

By dinnertime last night, all of the schools had cancelled for today (Wednesday). We had a quiet night at home last night. I read and Rudy played poker on the internet. He got up early with Caleb this morning and I slept in. I love snow days. Rudy, on the other hand, gets cabin fever at the mere mention of a snow day. He hates the idea of being stuck in the house. Apparently, Caleb is going to take after him. He has been so antsy these past couple of days. He NEEDS to get out and play and he needs to be around someone other than us. He has played with his toys and watched his movies and he's just done with it all.

Today was Rudy's turn to take a good long nap. His back is still hurting, so he slept for quite a while. I put Caleb down for a nap and told him that we'd go outside when he woke up. He did a good job of staying in his room, but just never could quite get to sleep. While he was in his room, Rudy and I found out that his grandmother who lives on the other side of town had been without power in her house since Tuesday morning. We tried to get her to come over here Monday afternoon before this all started, but she said she'd be fine. Well, lo and behold, it got down to 48 degrees in her house. Rudy called her this afternoon and she agreed to come over here. The power company is telling her that it may be the weekend (or longer) before she has power again. So...Rudy went over to get her this afternoon. I was a nervous wreck the whole time he was gone. He said that the main roads were passable and the interstate is fine, but the neighborhoods and side streets were still pretty bad. They made it home safely and we enjoyed dinner and a game of marbles before they went to bed.

While Rudy was gone to get Grandma, I took Caleb outside for that walk I promised him. I even got up in the attic and got his sled down. Sadly, this will be the last year he'll fit in that sled. We bundled up and went out for a walk. I pulled Caleb in his sled for a while, then he decided he wanted to pull it himself. I took some pictures along the way. Here are some of them (the rest are on our Shutterfly site).

Here's my little snowbaby all bundled up and loving it! This is SO much better than his reaction a year ago.

Here's little man in his sled that he has all but outgrown. We don't have any hills, but he loved for me to pull him really fast and let go. He called it "super-fast!"

Here's our house in it's winter glory. Notice how the little Charlie Brown tree in the front is leaning under the weight of the ice. We are so thankful to have this home to shelter us from the storm.

I love irony, so I had to take this picture of the snowman birdfeeder covered in ice.

I took this picture on a whim and love the way it turned out. It's just the ice accumulation on the grass in one of the empty lots in our neighborhood.

Here's our street sign coated in ice. Check out how big those icicles are. I'd hate to be under there when they fall!

School is already cancelled again for tomorrow (Thursday). Rudy has heard rumors that he may not go on Friday because a lot of the schools don't have power. I haven't heard anything about Friday for me. I'm hoping we can just get out of the house tomorrow. We've managed pretty well, but everyone has a limit and I've about reached mine.

We have been very fortunate not to lose power in this mess. There are 10's of thousands of people in NWA without power. Ours has flickered a few times, but never for more than a couple of seconds. We were prepared for the worst last night. We even blew up the air mattress in case we needed to sleep in the living room by the fireplace. But we have been blessed. We've had heat and lights through this whole thing...and my saving grace: the internet. Facebook has been my constant companion and connection with the outside world. Rudy says I'm addicted. Maybe he's right. :)

Oh...one last thing. Just for the record, it is extremely hard to stick to a diet when you are snowed/iced in with nothing to do. We've done it, but a big bowl of chili with sour cream, fritos and cheddar is sounding pretty darn good right about now!