SNOWMAGEDDON! Day two

The scene infront of our house on Day 1. That's Andy's car..



Lee Highway, on Day 1

"Holy Guacamole!" exclaimed the Governor of Virginia when shown pictures of the snowpocolypse that hit the region over the weekend. After stating, "glad I live in Richmond" he announced that the two available snowplows were scheduled to hit the residential streets sometime "next election year or possibly if my polls slip".

The Commonwealth of Virginia (see! we are not even a state! We are a Commonwealth- bonus points if you can name the other 3 commonwealths in the US) is oddly set up. Here we have counties and cities. Cities are separate entities from counties. They are not even PART of a county. They have their own forms of government and taxes, etc. The Cities in VA are responsible for plowing their own streets. The Cities streets' are pristine. The counties however, are at the mercy of the Commonwealth. VDOT plows us commoners out. I don't quite understand this arrangement but am going to blame the nation's founding fathers for this since frankly they are not here to rebut it.

As I write this, it's 7 am Monday morning, so technically, I am writing about Snowmageddon: day two, on day three. But then who's counting? Speaking of day three, the Federal Government is closed, as is daycare, and every school within spitting distance. The only thing not closed is my office, because THEY NEVER CLOSE. I think my company needs to take on the US Postal Service's motton ("Through rain, through snow, through dead of night..yadda yadda yadda.."), because the US Postal service is also closed.

Day two: Sometime during the evening of day one, I remembered that my two library books were due that day. Looking out the window, I calcualted my odds of walking the mile and a half in 20 feet of snow, to the library to avoid the late fines, but decided I could afford the 40 cents. Sunday was a beautiful, blue sky, sunny day, so we dragged out the sleds, bundled ourselves up and headed out to the library to return the books. This ended up being a great idea, as we not only got out of the house, but we played in the snow, had lunch and went home the really hilly way so we could sled down streets.

Alex and I sledding down one of our streets. It is a really steep hill, but unfortunately it is a cut through street as well (hence, sort of trafficky). The street was plowed to one lane. On our first attempt, a Jeep was struggling it's way up- and stopped when it saw us on the sled. We got out of the way, but the Jeep was now stuck halfway up the hill. He eventually backed-up and drove off the other direction. We decided if, with a Jeep, you could NOT get up this street, you should NOT be out driving.

Heading out to the library- note that yellow-ish light in the background. They call it "sun"

We either need new outdoor apparel or new scenery. These pictures are beginning to look all the same.

Andy and boys! Yes. There is still snow out there! New! Exciting!

Swinging in the snow

We also shoveled out the cars. A few neighbors at the bottom of our street spent a great deal of time shoveling that part of the street clean. One of the neighbor's has a wife who is 8 months pregnant. Some of you may think he did this "just incase". But having been 8 months pregnant myself (twice) he did this likely to get away from a crazed, couped-up pregnant woman (I'm speculating; I never saw her; but I bet I am right).

Speaking of couped up, that evening, Andy and the boys designed this hot wheels track layout. The cars really moved down the stairs. This was of course, after the boys spent a half an hour dragging up various toys to toss down the stairs (balls, foam blocks, each other)- It reminded me of the old David Letterman episodes, where Dave, would go to the roof of a three/four story building (I don't remember the exact height) and toss things like watermelons, or tv's or whatnots off. At one point, I think the boys used their pillows to "sled down". Yes, safety is OUR first concern at our house. Also, note the buckets they are wearing on their heads.

Meet Big Monkey. He was stopping the cars as they flew down the stairs, hit the ramp and went airborne. I envision it only being a matter of a few years, when Ian takes his bike down the stairs and uses his little brother much the say way..

Alex and little monkey.

More snow is predicted for tomorrow..wonder how much more hot wheel track we have?

SNOWMAGEDON!!

Yes, the end is definitely here. The Snow storm of the century, that they spent five days warning us about, actually has happened. Its STILL happening as I type. I'd make snarky Facebook comments about it (Facebook; its like Twitter but with pictures!) but I can't get to Facebook from this computer. It (my computer) has higher standards than I do. The Washington Post Weather blog had a storm naming contest. I believe Snowmagedon has won,but snoMG! was a seriously close second.

So, the day so far:

6:30 am- open door to walk Woody. Realize door won't open. All that pesky snow.

6:35 am- Woody DRAGS me down the street in a foot and a half of snow, because he HAS to pee three houses down. Yes folks. A foot and a half of snow, and it was only 6:35 am; it is now 3-ish pm and its STILL snowing. Virginia, which declared a state of emergency a day and a half ago has already announced that if you live anywhere other than on a snow emergency route you are screwed and good luck until spring! Of course, the Governor used different words. Its gonna be a long long long week. I think "lucky to see a plow by March" was another statement, but don't quote me.

Wood and I walked to check out the neighborhood and realize it all pretty much looks like this:

The street in front of our house at about 7:3o am. Andy's car is the one on the right. Currently (3:33 pm), you can no longer see any part of the car. It is merely a lump in the snow

Our house, side view. That's our neighbor's fence.



The street at the top of our street. The footprints on the left our mine and Woody's. Someone had managed to drive up our street and down this one at some point, but the tracks were quickly filling in. This photo was taken around 7:30 am as well




Here's a shot of the main street out of our neighborhood. The red light in the distance is Lee Highway, which is a major thoroughfare. Again the tracks you see are mine and Woody's. Not too many folks out this morning !



So if you were lucky enough to make it up the main street at of our neighborhood, good luck getting on to Lee Highway! You were met with this more than two foot high wall of snow (again, this is 7:30-ish). This was created by the snowplows. I'm afraid to see how high that wall is now at 3:30 pm.

After walking Woody, I shoveled the sidewalk, took the snow off my car and marveled at how lovely it all looked and resigned myself to the fact that we were stuck. Hopefully no one on the block has some sort of house fire or medical emergency, there ain't no way a fire truck or ambulance can make it here. I also took a page from my "Little House On the Prairie" books, when realizing I could not shovel a path to the backyard, I merely stamped the snow down until I had a path. Let's hope we don't end up burning the furniture in order to heat the home.

9 am; if felt like noon, we ate freshly baked cinnamon rolls, bundled up the boys and trudged outside. Alex cried because it was snowing on his face. Alex also refused to get in the sled, go down the hill, etc. etc. I sense we are not helping him develop a great love of outdoor winter sports at forcing him to "go outside and play dammit" in the snow.

Everything is pretty much shut down in the DC Metro area. Public transit, businesses, even the post office announced it "ain't delivering nothing no how". Andy is out walking Woody. I expect them home tomorrow and they are only going around the block. You may not hear from us again until spring.

Us heading outside to play. May as well enjoy the snow. Alex refuses to get into his sled. I have to carry him all the way to the park.

Me n'Alex

Sled boy...

The boys are dismantling the downstairs so I must go!!!

That Holiday Feeling Part Deux

Let's start this post off with a rousing version of "We Wish you a Merry Christmas". Ian's daycare class at their annual Christmas party. Andy's favorite act was the class after Ian's. The three year olds. Whatever they were singing disolved into riotous, chaos as everyone did their own thing on stage (song, dance, jumping, etc). What you do not see in this video is Andy holding Alexander back because he really, really really, wanted to be on stage with "Tree" which is Alex's name for Ian. We have no idea why.

With emotion!! Notice the cute chicks backing him up. That's my boy!

In order to assure maximum sucking up, er, gift receiving potential we saw Santa twice. The above Santa is our usual guy we see each year at one of the local malls. He remembers us, which is nice.

The boys appear to be constipated, and/or have important appointments to met and wish to just get this over...gotta love the gritting grin.

This is the snowstorm of the century that we had this past weekend. I have no idea how much we received..had to be a least 15-20 inches. You wonder WHY I don't know, is because I kept forgetting to turn on the news to see; put peering out the window indicated it was more than a foot. Also the neighbor's cars across the street were basically two large lumps of snow by midday. Alex is not so charmed by the whole snow thing and spent most of his time out side in his new boots (which he insisted on wearing/carrying around the house) saying, "mommy carry"... the most amazing part of the whole storm wasn't so much the amount of snow we received, but the fact that a snow plow came down our street THREE times before NOON; it wandered by another time or two in the evening. In 2003 we received 18 inches of snow. A plow never came by. Not once. After two days of being trapped, I shoveled a good portion of the street; seriously...

Walking to a neighbor's house for cookie decorating. What you don't hear in this picture is the fact that Alexander is SCREAMING his head off. He wants 'mommy carry" not to ride on the big, nasty snowtube. He is moments away from flinging himself off the tube.

Ian, on the other hand, is all over the whole being pulled through a semi-blizzard in a snowtube thing. He wishes this could happen in summer too.

The next day: After spending a good part of the morning shoveling snow on to the neighrbor's cars (HA! KIDDING neighbors!!) Andy decides its time to take a spin in the tub.

Me too! As I flew down the hill yelling, "WOOOOOHOOOOOOO!!!!" Alexander said, and I quote, "whooooa momma"..

Ian decided snowtubing is his thing. He was even able to climb back up the hill with the tube in tow. Which is good considering his boots were more hinderance than help. He would have stayed there all day tubing.

I just liked this picture. Boys in their Navy shirts (BEAT ARMY! oh wait, they did. heh)

This is the Grand Finale. It involves robust singing AND slick dance moves. At one point (not in this video) I hollered, "Shake your money makers guys!" ahh, nothing says Christmas like that.
at least no one threw their panties on stage :-)

..and to all a good night! May your Christmas be full of good cheer, good friends, good food, and for those traveling, decent coffee!

That Holiday Feeling

Somewhere in Ohio, at a gas station with the world's scariest bathroom. Apparently times are hard in Ohio, where they've had to sell all their remaining letter "E"s in order to balance the budget. What happens when they run out of the letter "F"? How will anyone be able to swear properly?

(PS. We just has a huge snowstorm and its three days before Christmas, so I will now blog about Thanksgiving! Most blogs are cutting edge and timely. Mine not so much.)

It was that time of year again. When we pack up the family truckster, the dog, two kids and five hundred random bags of clothes, toys, snacks, and things and hit the road. I call it the Midwest Trifecta. Three states, one week. Thirty Eight hours in a car. Yes. Thirty Eight. That is a day and a half. Technically two hours MORE than a day and a half. It’s enough to make a person try one of those new fangled contraptions, I think they are called, “airplanes”.

That is Alexander behind his nah-nah. And no, we have no idea why its called a nah nah, but it is.


Joe Cool lives.

Destination: Mom- somewhere in southern IL outside of St.Louis, MO.

At the St. Louis Zoo

Drive Day 1: 9.5 hours; Dayton, OH: This is by far the best part of the trip for driving. For one thing, you can pretty much find a Starbucks anywhere along the way. Yes, even in a state with no letter “E”s they at least had Starbucks to keep a weary traveler caffeinated. And believe it or not, it is a relatively scenic drive too. Maryland and Pennsylvania are semi-mountainous and have charming looking old farms with old stone farm houses etc. There is even a really cool tunnel to go through in PA.

Fun in a wagon at Mom's

OH is entertaining. If you are awake, while driving through Ohio you will notice that the number of Adult book stores is proportionate to the number of churches you see along the highway. This is purely, an anecdotal observation, backed up with no facts whatsoever, but its true. Its sort of like ying and yang. One balances out the other. What cracks me up are the signs for the adult store. They proclaim proudly that “Truckers Welcome!” Really? I mean who else is going to stop there? Families with small children?

The churches I find the most fascinating because it is not obvious to the everyday traveler just exactly what denomination they are. They are not the standard, St. James Catholic Church, or Wesleyan Methodist, but typically something like “The Church of the Holy Light and Redeeming Nature of Christ our Lord/Gas 'n Go [free 10 commandment coffee cup with fill up! Collect all TEN!]” and are located in a structure that was never intended to be a church.

The Adult book stores are what I am most interested in. And not for the fine literature. In all my years of driving back and forth between points East to points Midwest, I’ve always wanted to check one of these places out. What exactly do they sell in there? What does it cost? What exactly is an Adult Novelty, a snow globe? I did notice on this trip that a lot of the places seemed to be closed. I guess these days with iPods, Kindle, mobile DVD players and the like, most truckers do not need to ever stop their truck to receive their adult entertainment, although one would need to leave the truck to buy the snow globe.

St. Louis Science Center to check out Dinosaurs. Waiting for their lunch of fried T Rex legs.

Drive Day 2: 6 hours – this is the part of the trip that tries men’s souls. It’s through Indiana and Illinois. I grew up here and can state with some authority that these two states are flat and boring. There are no other words to use to describe it. And worse yet, no place to get a decent cuppa joe. No Starbucks, or even a Dunkin’ Donuts. Weary travelers are reduced to drinking strange brown water from gas stations or McDonalds. I don’t care what Consumer Reports said about McDonald’s coffee– when you are a coffee snob, life is tough, at least on I-70, in Indiana and Illinois.

However, if you are into fresh venison, you are in the right place! For fun we began to keep track of the road kill.. It was, for the most part, and what we could discern at 70 miles per hour, deer. My favorite sight, was somewhere in IL, from the highway, I spotted three men in bright hunting orange grab in some one’s driveway. There were three dead deer hanging from hooks from the garage frame. My comment was, “why go shoot a deer when you can walk 100 yards to the highway and scoop up a couple of dead ones?” Because right there, on the side of the road, was dead deer number 13! I guess scooping them up off the highway would not be very sporting.

Drive Day 3: 8 hours; Destination: Dad’s Central Indiana
It’s about 5 hours from Mom’s to Dad’s. For normal people. That is, people without two small children and one neurotic dog. Every time we hit a rest stop to go to the bathroom it was not just a quick get out of the car, pee and hit the road. No. It was a major production. It took Eisenhower less time to plan the invastion of (and invade) Normandy than it took us to do our business. I never got to pee by myself it was always with two small boys who liked to: crawl around on the floor and check out what the person in the stall was doing next to us.

Uncle "Santa Claus" Bob and Alex having a moment

Dad and Alex having a moment

Alexander with his cousin Kylie, and Woody (also referred to as "Wee" by Alex). I have no idea why we have no photos of Ian at Dad's house. I am pretty sure he was there.

It should be noted here, that the boys were fabulous in the car. Many voices of doom warned us that traveling with children was impossible without a portable DVD player. Well, if the pioneers could do it without a DVD player by golly so could we! They were fine and were kept entertained with books, crayons, toys and the like. There were occasional outbursts of fussiness - and one complete outbreak of crankiness but that was me after 7 hours in a car and hitting rush hour traffic in Indianapolis. Don't these people know WE were on vacation? Geesh.

Drive Day 4: 3 hours; Destination Louisville KY….
Totally unremarkable. We stopped once at a rest stop that had a PLAYGROUND. There ought to be a law that every rest stop has a playground. Of course the equipment was wet and cold, but no one cared. The drive should have taken 2.5 hours, but the playground distracted us.

In Louisvile with someone NOT a relative.

Insert your own comment about a**es here. We are at some animal sancutary in Louisville started by an eccentric billionaire. The donkeys hang out in the parking lot and shake you down as you get out of your car. They want carrots, or else..

What can I say? Donkeys and little boys..Makes for a good ending eh? HA! GET IT? ENDING! HAR!

Drive Day 5: Homeward Bound; 12 hours
See Days 1 Drive for details, minus the enthusiasm for starting a trip or the patience. No photos available as it was ugly.

What We Did for Our Summer Vacation

An Amish horse and buggy at the Hess gas station. Someone must have had a craving for a slurpee or whatever it is you buy at the Hess (Doritos? pork rinds? um, gas?!) or possibly they needed their Dunkin' Donuts fix. I wonder if that is like crack to the Amish?

Remember as a kid, you had to write up a brief essay explaining what you did on your summer vacation (ABSOLUTELY NOTHING)?! This is that essay. Sort of. First we took no real vacation, although we did go to Amish country in Strasburg PA for a long weekend. Here is the month by month low down of our summer.

June. We did nothing. Well technically not nothing, but we did stuff, mostly boring everyday stuff. You know. nothing.

July- Ian also had the nerve to turn four years old. Yes. FOUR. No. I cannot believe it. He is now a little boy. Somewhere between 3 and 4 he lost any last traces of baby-ness. His face thinned out (this could be from the fact he doesn’t actually eat food), he can now climb agilely, jump off of things, ride a bike, write his name, stand on his head, and navigate around a website. His voice is that of a small child, no babyness left in it. Speaking as an adult, it seems like it takes forever to become a grown up. Watching my first born, I realize, forever is a short amount of time. It’s amazing to watch; it’s satisfying to experience and slightly heartbreaking all at the same time. Our baby is growing up.

Goodbye baby; hello little boy.


Also in July

We decided to take a long weekend and ride an old train. We opted, this year rather than spend a day out with Thomas (http://smytacchiworld.blogspot.com/2008_05_01_archive.html) to go to beautiful Strasburg, PA. They have a lovely old train station and train museum and an old train that pulls the old cars and you get to ride. We never made it to the museum but we did ride the train and hang out at the train station.

The highlights of our trip were our accommodations and the fact Strasburg is in the heart of Amish country.

Sitting on the "porch" of our Caboose. The boys are playing with the plastic cups they give you for use to brush your teeth or whatever. Why we ever buy them toys is beyond me.

We stayed at, “The Caboose Motel”, which, as the name implies, is just that. A series (34) of cabooses have been converted to motel rooms and plopped down about ½ mile up the road from the train station. If luxury and space is what you are looking for, well, look elsewhere. Our caboose, appropriately enough, was from the Strasburg Railroad. It was long and narrow, and sat on a slight incline. Andy and I had to rearrange the bed so when we laid down to sleep all the blood didn’t rush to our heads. Alex spent the weekend walking his head into the sharp corner of the formica table, that had once been much bigger, but cut in half in order for it to fit in a caboose. Two people could not walk through the thing at the same time, we had to take turns, or climb on a bed to get out of the way. FUN! But hey, it was a CABOOSE! WOOOOOOOO WOOOOOOOOOOOOO

The area surrounding the train station and the caboose motel was mostly Amish farms. They were absolutely lovely and made you wish the world of farmers were all Amish. No run down dilapidated buildings, no rusty equipment sitting in a field. Everything was neat, and tidy, and clean, and landscaped (including the propane tanks). Gardens were lustrous and full of healthy looking plants (unlike our yard).

Our “Little House on the Prairie” moment occurred when we were out for a morning run. Andy and I loaded the boys into the double jogger and off we went down hilly, two laned roads. The cars roared by at 90 miles an hour (because this is PA and this is exactly how Pennsylvanian’s drive) The horse and buggies clipped clopped briskly by us. Old, Amish people would enthusiastically wave, children would stare, and young adults would sort of giggle and wave.

On our first morning run, we came upon an Amish farm with a small stream running through property on one side. There were 5 Amish boys, outside playing in the stream. They were wearing black overalls that did not quite come down to their ankles, blue button-up shirts, and straw hats. All five were barefoot. Andy yelled something in German at them, but I was too far behind him to hear well (and HE pushed the boys in a stroller and I still could not keep up with him); He said it was “Good Morning” or “God’s greeting”-but I think he said, "haben sie Bier bitte!?" (thanks to Google and internet language translation programs, hopefully that says, "Do you have any beer, please!?" and not "I want to massage your Grandmother")

While in the area, we went to an amusement park called, DutchWonderland. What amazes me, everytime we go to Pennsylvania, is how very rural is smack dab smooshed up against, amazingly developed. There is never any transitional areas where the rural slowly leads to strip malls. Its visually and pyschologically jarring. To get to DutchWonderland we drove along a lovely, rolling rural road that brought us to Route 30; as soon as we turned onto that main artery, we were magically transported from the early 1800's to stripmall-o-rama. DutchWonderland is smack dab in stripmall-o-rama and you would never even notice it for all the crapola-malls that are there, unless you wondered what that castle was doing sitting there, next to what I initially thought was a car dealership, but really was just the parking lot for the amusement park and a place that sold fudge.

It was kitch x 100!! It was the perfect amusement park for small children. Alex could pretty much go on a majority of the rides. There were some, he just stood staring at and shaking his head, "nonononono" which is Alex for, "No. Thanks. I'd rather not".

Also, I attempted to grow tomatoes:

heh heh heh. This blog has nice tomatoes eh?

August: My company hosted an "Employee Fun Day" at Six Flags. If we hadn't hit a massive traffic snarl up trying to get ourselves over the bridge into Maryland to Six flags, we probably would have had a much better time. Let's just say after Alex ripped my toenail off in the water park, at precisely the same moment Andy came from around a large water slide that was in the shape of a dinosaur (or whatever it was) saying, "Have you seen Ian? I can't find him", and I could do nothing but moan in pain (due to my toenail HANGING by a thread and blood and stuff; which might give you all pause the next time you decide to swim at a public pool or water park) and say, "uuuuuuuuuuuuooooooooow" that the day pretty much went down hill from there. Suffice it to say, we found Ian and made it home at some point; my toenail however was toast... (for anyone interested in knowing WHY my toenail was ripped off- it all has to do with recycling our old TV. Also before Alex inadvertantly de-toenailed me, I was yelled at by the lifeguard for sliding down the dinosaur "no adults on the slide!")

September. Alex turned TWO years old. TWO! My other baby is about to leave us as well. He Loves to climb and run, although his balance is still a work in progress. Needless to say he is our little bruised boy. He likes to point at his legs, which are nothing but scraps and bruises and say, "boh boh" which is "boo boo". He has definite ideas about what he wants and when he wants them and by golly don't stop him And tho' his language ablilites are not fully developed, he can definitely express what he wants. Alex also likes to walk by you and wave "bye bye"..which is fitting. As everyday passes, the baby that is Alex is walking away waving "bye bye".. bye bye little baby...

Alex enjoys wearing hats. He also enjoys wearing his bucket. And riding around on the toy car carrier. We think the first will be a major fashion trend this fall; the second will become the rage with all the kids.

Also, Andy turned 50. He likes to joke that he has this strong urge to drive slow in the lefthand lane with his left turn signal on. He is now a card carrying member of AARP.

I have been feeling very very old of late and at a little sad with all the birthdaying and growing up that is going on.

And that has been our summer. And now, more pictures!

Waiting for a ride on the miniature train near our house. We had ten minutes but Ian insisted we sit on the train and wait, just incase.. Alex, is contemplating his 2nd birthday. We went to this park specifically for his birthday, even tho' we went the day after his birthday, because this is what happens when you are the second child.

We played a rousing game of miniature golf at the same park. Surprisingly, we thought Alex would be all over the whole ball/club thing; but it was Ian who enjoyed whacking things around. Its not like we kept score (although I woulda kicked Andy's butt had we been keeping score!). Alex preferred leaping off the rocks that doubled as obstacles on the course.



A better view of the Caboose Motel.



Having a meal in the dining car at the Caboose Hotel. Yes it did too have a dining car. Of course!
The boys ought to be pulling ME! Alex is looking learily at the giant Amish dude.


The Smythe boys wish to be Amish. They try to figure out where the "start" button is on this.

The Smythe boys have loads of fun on a trampoline. This was at the Delaware Smythe's house for our niece's, Kyle's, high school graduation party. Kyle has started college and has already run into a college student. Literally; with her car! She claims the woman walked into her, while (I guess) she (kyle) was stopped . A likely college story!


A rare photo of the boys NOT naked in the pool in the backyard. Note the little purple pool. We bought it for Woody years ago. The boys love it. Woody refuses to go near it while the boys are in it. Poor Wood!



Rasta boys! They decided to wear the winter hats I made them and rock in the chair.