Snow much fun

Last Thursday we finally got our first big snow. it was quite funny because when I found out that Doug was going to be out of town for work I told him that "guaranteed the day after you leave it will finally snow."

Well, he left Wednesday. It snowed Thursday.

When Abi got home from school I got them both in snow clothes so they could play in the snow while I shoveled. Of course, I didn't do much good because it was still snowing at this point but I wanted to at least get something done.

Abi was so happy to play in the snow...

The next morning I went out and tried out the new snowblower for the first time- luckily Doug gave me a lesson before he left. 

I had Abi babysit Maddy while I did it. It was definitely a lot easier and quicker!

I got these pictures later that morning when Abi was out waiting for her bus. Maddy brought down her friends to watch Abi and say goodbye to her...

She cracks me up with how attached she is to all her Mickey and Minnies and her Clarisse. She was watching a cartoon while I was cleaning and I thought she looked so cute...

Lowe's goodness

Recently Doug took Abi to Lowe's for the build and grow activity. I used to take her to them but it has become a daddy/daughter activity now which I think is fantastic. 

They were making monster boxes this time...

They had such a good time. 

And onto other Lowe's news. We finally got a snowblower!

Yippee!!!

Unprepared

Last night I realized we aren't prepared very well for emergencies. Sure we have food storage but we haven't put water in our two huge water buckets yet and we don't have those bags of clothes and things for each family member they recommend. So, how did I come to this conclusion last night out of the blue?

Thursday night I woke up at 12:30. This isn't unusual. It would be unusual for me to get a full nights sleep. So as I'm starting to fall back asleep there was the weirdest thunder clap. It started and stopped and then resumed a minute later... or at least that was what it seemed like. I just laid in bed trying to go back to sleep but having a hard time at it with the loud storm wailing outside- we get MAJOR thunderstorms here that scare even me sometimes and I love storms. So, I'm starting to doze and the tornado siren goes off. I wake up Doug and Abi and carry her down into the basement. Luckily Doug had set up the bottom of the King sized bed down there so we had somewhere to hang out. He brought down the computer so we could check the weather reports (thank goodness for wireless internet) to find out when it was safe to come back up. We finally all got back upstairs around 2am.

All day yesterday it was stormy. It was that strange kind of stormy where the sun comes out for a few minutes and it stops raining but the wind is blowing like crazy and then a few minutes later the rain is pounding down like crazy and the sky is dark.

At around 6 or so (I'm not sure the exact time) Abi had just got out of the bath and I had her in her jammies and was brushing her hair. Doug was on the computer and we were all just hanging out together in our room. The siren went off again. Doug checked the weather web site and all it said was thunderstorm warning. I said I didn't care, we still needed to go down to the basement again. I carried Abi again along with some blankets. Doug brought down the computer. As soon as he was with Abi, I came back upstairs for a minute and looked outside. It certainly looked like tornado weather with the insanely dark sky and crazy clouds.

So, we set up the computer and put on a video to entertain Abi who was a little nervous. Then the power went out. I waited for it to come back on but it didn't. We have had it go out before but never longer than a few minutes. We waited and waited and nothing.

Doug ran upstairs to check on something (I don't remember what) and came back down with the cell phone we had left upstairs. We had a message from my friend Taylor telling us that a tornado had just touched down at the airport. The airport is right by our house... so I decided we needed a few things. I went upstairs to get a flashlight not knowing when the power would come back on.

That is when I found out that we have no batteries for our flashlight and it wasn't working. I grabbed a candle and matches and a bottle of water and rushed back down. I realized then that we need a tornado camp out kit down there with extra clothes and water and flashlights along with activities for Abi. It made me remember when I was a little girl living in Georgia and we had tornadoes and hurricanes all of the time. We would lose power and my mom would make it fun. One time I remember vividly is being huddled around the dining room table sewing Barbie clothes by candlelight. Minutes before that I had been rushing home on the bus watching tree branches fall all over the road around us and was terrified and when I got home my mom calmed me down and made it a good memory. So, today I think we'll put together some packs for that kind of situation.

Abi finally fell asleep between us and we all stayed down there for a few hours. Finally, Doug and I decided to just come back upstairs. The storm wasn't wailing as much and the sky didn't look so bad. We got Abi to bed and fell asleep on the couches. We woke up when the power finally came back on at 11:30. What a crazy night.

It really made me grateful for the safety of our home and for our basement which under normal circumstances I hate (there was a dead mouse down there once.Blah.) and reminded me that anything can happen at anytime and we better be prepared.

The Basement

I talked about the storms here the other day... here are some pics from our time spent in the basement Sunday night.

Where in the world did we move to?

I knew Wisconsin would be cold. I knew we'd have long winters. Yes, the 30 below wind chills and snow piles taller than me are not fun... but they were expected. What I didn't expect was that we were moving to tornado alley/flood central! Last January, as most of you probably saw on the news, we were hit by a few tornados here. When the sirens went off I didn't know what to do. It didn't look like tornado weather outside. I went out to check the mail and it got dark suddenly. I looked back at the house and saw Abi in the doorway in the same line of vision as the clouds beginning to swirl. I sprinted back and grabbed her and ran to the basement. So, anyway, I thought that when the sirens went back off you could come back up- kind of an "all clear" but I found out Friday night that it's just a "take cover"and you have to stay down until they are gone whenever that may be. Well, it rained all weekend. Really rained. This trailer park is just a little way down the street from us and normally just has a little stream running through it. But we also had tornado after tornado warning. I spent so much time in the basement. Sunday night it went off at night. We rushed to grab some clothes, shoes, blankets, and woke up Abi. Doug grabbed some food and drink on his way down. This was his first time being home during one. We spent over an hour down in the basement sitting on an old bed mattress cover thing while we watched the laptop waiting for the warning to go away.(Thank goodness for wireless internet!) I used to love storms and tornados even... but now that I have Abi it really freaks me out.