Stranded!

Due to the MAJOR snowstorm that hit the east coast Sunday and part of today, we are stranded! And not in NJ, but in Illinois, where we spent the Christmas holiday with John's family. And we are not exactly stranded, as we are still at John's parents' house, and NOT at an airport trying to keep a 15 month old amused. The earliest we can get ourselves back is Wednesday morning on a 10:15 flight. Our flight had not actually been cancelled until 2pm (3pm east coast), which means had we heeded the info US Airways website provided us with as far as our flight status, we would have been stranded at the airport, which is a 2 hour drive from where we are, plus there is an hour time difference, so you have to remember to plan that in when leaving for the airport! Fortunately, we did see the "travel advisory" notice about the weather, and we opted to book ourselves on another flight, the first available being Wednesday morning since everyone else traveling yesterday and today were attempting to do the same thing.

So while we are glad to have a few extra days to spend with Oma, Opa and everyone else, it's also a bit difficult because Tommy has been a bit out of sorts not being in his "regular" environment, and we have to tail him everywhere since we don't have the "baby jail room" like we do at home. Meals have been extremely frustrating, and naptimes are either non-existent OR totally off schedule, even taking the hour time difference into consideration. He fights us every single time for a nap, when it's obvious he is exhausted. Saving grace is that he has been sleeping well at night. Today Tommy finally ate 2 entire chicken nuggets and a bunch of cut up pieces of pear. We have probably watched the same 4 videos about 100x each; Baby Einstein Santa's Music Box is the one thing that seems to help him go down for a nap, but it takes forever, and then he only naps for an hour when at school he'd go for 2 plus.

Tommy slept the entire flight out, thankfully, as our experience at the Philly airport was a bit challenging. But, we are very grateful we decided to park the car in a garage at the airport since the storm hit. We hear that Philly got about a foot of snow, while we got over 2 feet at home, with the drifts being even more. John's friend who was feeding the cats twice a day for us could not get out of his house, but we were able to reach a neighbor who was nice enough to get over to the house this morning and get then some fresh food, and she'll go over to do so until we get back on Wednesday. Our street had still not been plowed when John spoke to her, which means our driveway will be totally plowed in. We're dreading having to deal with that when we do make it home. The last 2 years, John actually used our snowblower to help at least 3 different neighbors whose snowblowers did not work, so here's hoping that pays off for us...

Our trip otherwise has been good. We had a nice lasagna dinner on Christmas Eve; I even had 2 glasses of wine, a nice rare treat! Sunday we opened presents at Oma and Opa's house and then went to John's cousin's house to hang out and have dinner. Tommy had a blast playing with the other kids, and especially LOVED playing with all the balls on the pool table. We also got some great video of him dancing with the other kids while they did the Wii Dance thing a ma jig (can you tell we don't have the Wii...or XBox, or whatever other fancy things might be out?). I even got in on the action and had so much fun I think we need to get one!

Santa was very good to Tommy, as were his Oma and Opa, Aunt Maria and Uncle Craig, cousins Julia and Ethan and Bella the dog, Uncle Bryan and Uncle Sef. Santa also left some presents at our house according to the neighbor, so we'll open those when we return on Wednesday.

I don't have the ability to post any pics or videos, but will do so once we are settled back home. If you've been hit by the snowstorm, I hope you are enjoying a nice cup of hot chocolate (or wine) and relaxing by the fire!