Here's What We Came Home To...

We left John's parents on Tuesday night to stay at a hotel near the Indianapolis Airport. It's a 2 hour drive from his parents, plus we lose an hour driving from Illinois inton Indiana, which as simple as it sounds results in much out loud planning to make sure we are leaving when we need to be leaving if we go the day of to the airport. To simplify, we decided it would be easier to stay near the airport so we did not have the 2 hour drive on top of the arriving 2 hours before hand to the airport.

We were in the very last row on the plane, which was fine by us since we always wait until everyone is off the plane to disembark since we have so much stuff and don't want to hold up the aisle. Ever notice how antsy some folks are to get off the plane? We get ourselves organized with all of our carry-on bags (which I mentioned in the previous post we are going to figure out how to cut down to ONE) so we aren't forgetting anything. The flight left 15 minutes late, but Tommy was asleep before takeoff and napped for more than half the flight. We landed early, and then the dredded trek to baggage claim began. We figure out how to manage 2 diaper bags, John's briefcase, my purse, a toddler in a stroller, and 3 winter coats, and think, we've got this...then we realize oh yeah...the 2 checked bags and the car seat...

By the time we got to baggage claim only our items were left going around on the carousel...and we realize someone decided to do something in his diaper AFTER we'd passed the restroom about 500 feet back. Not fun trying to get a toddler back in his stroller after you take him out for a diaper change when he never wanted to go in the stroller in the first place. Someone was a bit upset with us for teasing him, thinking he was being let out after being strapped to his Mommy on an airplane in his "sit seat."

The best planning we did this entire trip was to park our car in the garage at the Philadelphia Airport. We usually fly out of Newark, but flights were cheaper from Philly this time, and while our departure on Christmas Eve left a bit of a sour taste in our mouths, we were grateful for our good sense to leave the car in a garage rather than the "economy" lot. Sure, it would have been cheaper, but we would have had to shuttle bus ourselves and bags back to a car that would have been snow-covered, which we know we would not have wanted to deal with. Philly did not get as much snow as we did near the shore area, but it was enough to cancel our flight as well as many others that week.

The roads were fine most of the drive home since we were on highways. We hit a little traffic due to an accident, but got off that road and took an alternate route, where we purchased another gas can so we could fill it up for the snowblower at home. The trip from the airport should have taken 90 minutes. Key word being SHOULD. Total driving time - three hours!

Someone was just about ready for his second nap of the day once we got on the road home after arriving in Philly.

We heard on the traffic reports that the exit ramp to our house as well as the next best one to use were both closed due to snow removal, so we got off onto the 3rd alternate we had, and came face to face with this:

Snow and bumper to bumper traffic on Route 9. We are about 6-8 miles from home. I think we were on this road for over an hour. Only one lane of the 2-lane highway was clear. Even Tommy was pretty sick of watching his videos at this point!

View as we drove up our street...the first plow the street saw after the storm was that MORNING according to the neighbors! And it stopped snowing on Monday afternoon!

View of our back deck...our grill was completely buried in a snow drift!

View from our front door of driveway and our neighbor's house where we had to park our car until John got the driveway cleared. Yes, we trekked through that snow you see wearing sneakers and jeans. Tommy thought it was the funniest thing and laughed at every grunting noise I made as I carried him...it was not easy, but Tommy's giggles made me push through!

Another view out of our front door

John took this from in the garage, just before he got the snowblower started up

Once John got some of the driveway cleared, it doesn't look like 30 inches, does it? I think the way the wind blew what fell created different levels though.

Tommy checking out what's going on outside

Daddy throwing a snowball at Tommy

John was able to get half the driveway cleared out that afternoon so that we could pull my car in the garage, and so that he could maneuver his car out from the other side. He finished up the rest on Friday morning. We did not really go outside to play in the snow. The snowsuit I had for Tommy was a size 3T; I thought it was a 2T, which we could have made work, but the 3T was way too big. And I could not get the snowboots on his feet. He's still wearing a size 4, and the boots are a 5, so it's not the sizing, but the shoe. When we went out on Thursday to run some errands, I let Tommy run out the garage to see where he'd go...he ran to the street, turned around, and ran to the car to get in. He had no interest in the snow. I bought a sled for him which we did not use, but there was nowhere to pull him on it since the street was down to blacktop. We hear we are getting a few inches this weekend, so maybe this weekend we'll try the sled out.