Buh-errrrrrr.

This week has definitely been one for the books. Monday was the ice storm (see below's rant). Tuesday evening the snow came. And by Wednesday it was bitter cold. Of course Annalee's two month check-up was 9am Wednesday morning.

And as I was heading out of the driveway, my van got stuck. Thankfully Greg was at home so I didn't have to deal with this on my own. However, I still may have shed a few tears out there and had some choice words for this place we now call home. After five minutes of trying to de-stuck the van, I called to reschedule for 11am. I went inside to feed our screaming child. Greg spent the next hour shoveling and snow blowing the van out. He also went to fill the van up because it was near out of gas (not a good thing). He tried buying salt (to put on the ground so the ice melts) at two places but they were all out. The whole town of Bismarck was out buying salt to lessen the ice rink that is their driveways and sidewalks. Uffda is right.

See the non-ice part where the van used to be parked? The rest = ice.

But I made it to the appointment with both Annalee and Eli. Imagine me holding Eli's hand while he's trying to smoosh his face into my leg because he's breathing in this freakishly cold weather while I'm also carrying Annaelee in her car seat and a diaper bag through the not-yet-plowed piles of snow with my not-still-healed foot. Poor Eli tripped twice and I'm sure it looked like I dragged him a few feet. I felt like doing a victory arm-in-air punch when we made it inside.

After her appointment I had to go to the grocery store with these kiddos. As I was nearing an intersection I just kept thinking about all my friends back in SC and how they surely, most surely were NOT gripping the steering wheel wondering if they were going to slide into the car in front of them as they were driving that day. Nope. But I was! And will be 'til I remember how to drive on this again.

Of course this amount of ice plus all the snow and super cold won't always be here. It will get better. And then a little worse sometimes. But it won't always be this bad. Plus eventually I WILL remember how to live here again and even learn how to manage kids in all this.

That said, if Greg's parents didn't arrive back from China that night, I was seriously considering getting on a plane back to SC. I told them they needed to come back as our reasons for staying here significantly lessen if they aren't around! But they arrived and we stayed inside all day yesterday. Today Grandma and I braved the "feels like -20" weather to bring the kids to the mall. It went just fine but man, that cold bites. So glad for warm cars, warm houses and Grandma!

View from our bedroom window. I wish you could see the wind fiercely blowing the snow!

More posts with some cute kid photos soon!

-Heather