Tuesday, December 10, 2013

Icepocalypseageddonapalooza 2013


Allow myself to introduce…myself.

Wait, have I used that one already? One of the last times I took F-O-R-E-V-E-R to blog? Well, if I did, then you already know who I am. Welcome back!

We have been recently enjoying, hibernating, coping, suffering (pick your most realistic experience-I like people to feel comfortable here) through the Icemageddon 2013. Or Icepocalypse 2013. Again, pick your poison.

For those who haven’t been watching the extreme second-to-second weather coverage here in the metroplex, we had an ice event. Not snow, ice. We had two days out of school and any semblance of normal life, bookending a weekend. Four days of extreme togetherness.

Car is in, ice can fall now!
The garden is ready for the sleet!
We started this adventure by doing the age-old “Is it cancelled?” dance. We have upgraded from staring at the crawl at the bottom of the news to staring at the crawl down the feed of our Twitter pages. We are so advanced.


At the point Thursday night that they finally called no-joy on school for Friday, my heart leapt with joy. The joy of no alarm and no making lunches. I hate making lunches. HATE it. H.A.T.E. it! 

I digress.

While the sleet and freezing rain fell, we ate hearty, cold-fighting soup and pizza sandwiches. We watched the live version of Sound of Music snuggled under blankets in our jammies by the roaring fire. Cue the idyllic music you hear in your head when you look at a Norman Rockwell painting…wait, it probably sounds something like the Sound of Music.


Everyone fell asleep mid-show from apparent boredom and lack of a stellar lead performance (though I must give a shout-out to the Mother Abbess, Audra MacDonald. Killer pipes! Saved the show!) Carrie Underwood can sing, but maybe not the best choice…

Snow (ice) Day One: We spent it sans the hubby, who was still wending his way back from Hong Kong. It was fine, I had done the Texas-prepper-grocery-store-stock-up the day before. We were replete with movies, firewood, cocoa and, thanks to the school fundraiser, frozen cookie dough. Oh, I also got milk and bread. I’m pretty sure it’s the law.


The day dawned grey. The air was filled with a frosty chill and the sound of tiny ice shards bouncing off of the windows and roof. I know because I was there. Awake. Because all three kids slept in until, oh I don’t know, 6:45????? In the A.M. Seriously? The middle child actually ran around to her sisters’ rooms yelling, “Hey! It sleeted!”

Ummm…was someone not paying attention last night?

And it began. The sleds Santa brought a few years back came out. The kids got dressed like Randy from A Christmas Story and went out to sled down the street.  They met up with friends to sled, looking like little hobo gangs, wrapped against the arctic chill. I mean, really, nobody around here has appropriate, coordinated winter gear.



This ice tastes awesome!


So went a full day of sledding, sledding faster, eating cookies, drinking cocoa, sledding more, eating soup, sledding into cars, falling off sleds, crying, watching Christmas movies, eating cookies, drinking cocoa, sledding again, eating pot roast, thawing by the fire and passing out on sofas. Day One, Out.

This is the one who sledded into a car.

The hubby made it home after a treacherous several hours in a cab and hiking up our icy hill after being ditched by the cabbie (to be fair, the hill was soon littered with abandoned cars-we have quite the hill). Yea!

Day Two: See day one, minus the treacherous drive from DFW.


Day Three: Christmas decorations came down from storage and we watched the movie White Christmas as we do every time we put up the tree. The kids passed out again at 8:00-they were tuckered out!


Day Four: No school again! I confess I was pretty stoked. The hubby had to work from home and we did have to go to the orthodontist and gymnastics, but there was more sledding, cocoa and cookies. And we went out to dinner! Ahhh, Ye Olde El Chico!


All in all we had a great break. An enforced slowdown. We played together, created together, decorated together, ate together. We cooked at home, did crafts, shared traditions and made some new ones. I never knew that many rainbow loom creations could be made in one long weekend!

Some people were struggling with being “trapped” with their families and having too much togetherness. I know I don’t know everything going on in everyone’s lives, but I have to say I loved the time of snuggling together in front of the fire with nowhere to go.


People on Facebook said we would “Rue the day” they cancelled school again and “curse these days” in the spring when we had to make them up instead of being off in good weather.

First of all, I rarely “rue the days” I get to spend with my family, free from obligations. Even the holidays are rife with “have-tos”. Secondly, the make-up days are May 23rd, two weeks from the end of school and stretching Memorial Day weekend into four days. No thanks! And June 6th, the day after school was supposed to get out and probably 95 degrees already.

The kids went back to school today and I was a little sad. I didn’t miss the ice but I missed them. I’ll be okay. Only 10 more day until Christmas Break!


More Hijinks...