Remind Me Again

Why I love snow days? Because now they are complete torture to me.
We can't go anywhere. The kids hate going in the snow. So we are stuck inside while they destroy the house around me. I can't go out and enjoy the weather because I can't leave them behind. Cabin fever is setting in and it is about to make me crazy.

It's like I can't look around my house without noticing all of the crap (i.e. toys, clothes, dishes) and all that I have to do, but I can't get anything done!

Oh and Lucy is running a fever again and hasn't stopped crying for most of today. I am so glad that school got cancelled today.

My Sweet Little Angel

Tonight, we sat down to eat dinner and we were all digging in and Asher just looked at us and said, "STOP! We have to pray!" So we joined hands and Matt asked Asher to give the blessing. So Asher held Lucy's hand, bowed his head and said, "God, thank you for this food. Amen." Then, looking very pleased with himself, sat back down and ate his dinner.
We were so in love with him!
The same child woke up from his nap yesterday and decided he didn't want to poo in his diaper and so he took it off and pooped on his floor. In three piles. Thankfully, I was running errands and so Matt had to clean it up. Cause I might have puked on my child otherwise.

Seriously.

Thank God for Other People

On the last night of the ASC, Jack Hanna came out and brought a bunch of animals with him from the Columbus Zoo. Whenever live animals come onstage, anything can happen.
Hanna asked for a volunteer to hold a snake and the program guys wife was selected. (Thank GOD this has not happened to me yet!) Anyway, she was holding the snake and well, just watch the clip.

I could not have recorded this video because I was laughing so hard I couldn't breathe.

Quick Picture

My friend Shaunna took this picture of the pools at the resort. Is this not amazing? Ahhh, it is snowing in Asheville and we were just laying by the pool this time last week. I wanna go back!

Well Forget it

This guy blogged during the conference and has summed it up better than I can:

http://www.jasoncupp.com/blog/

We're Back!

We got in the door about an hour ago and I just saw this come up on YouTube.
Of course videos from the Young Life All-Staff Conference are already up!



I will blog more tomorrow!

Just here in Orlando

Sorry about the break from blogging. Matt and I are in Orlando, FL at the Young Life All-Staff Conference. It is amazing. Four thousand Young Life staffers all gathering in one place.
It is like a giant reunion of some of our favorite people! It is super intense cause you have these amazing five minute long reunions and deep conversations and then move ten feet down and do it again. Then you go to the session meetings and cry your face off from what you are hearing and then laugh your face off at what you are hearing.
We are sleeping well.
Last night, Jeff Foxworthy, who is a Wyldife leader; came out and did a set. I have not ever laughed that hard for that long before. It was a great surprise!
We are heading to the pool to read Real Simple and hang out with our friends. Cause we are all kid-free and loving it!

Sorry for no communication, the conference center charges $15 a day for internet service. So we are only buying it for one 24-hour period.

See you when we get back!

Don't Travel to Kansas City

It is time to recap our trip back from Trail West.

We packed up our kids and all of our stuff and left TW at 8:40am.
We arrived in Denver at 11:15am to return our rental car and report for our flight at 1:55pm.
We eat lunch and head through security.
We arrive in the terminal only to find that our flight has been delayed one hour and will depart at 2:55pm.
We are a little frustrated since we had planned on the 1:55 flight so our kids could catch a good nap.
At 2:45, we still haven't boarded and realize that we are in danger of missing our connecting flight to Charlotte.
The flight attendants insist that there is NO OTHER WAY to Charlotte today and we must board.
We get on and sit on the runway another 45 minutes. We realize that we will have exactly 10 minutes to catch our flight to Charlotte. We devise a plan that involves Matt getting off of the flight with Asher and running to the next gate so that he can hold the plane. I have to take Lucy and get the stroller from the gate check.
Plan goes as planned, except that it takes them 15 minutes to unload gate check.
I emerge from the tunnel and there in not a single airline representative to greet me. I have no idea where I am going. All I see in front of me is an emergency exit with a security guard stationed at the open door and to the left gates. So I head left and after three gates, it dead-ends.
I have to turn around with Lucy in the stroller and head back through the crowd of people. I get to the emergency exit and ask the guard where to go.
He says, "You just go down the hall to the left."
No gate #. No further directions. Just go left. And go out through the emergency exit.
So I head down the hall and Matt is calling for me to run. So I pick up the pace to arrive at another SECURITY CHECKPOINT.
Yes that is right. Both kids have jackets, shoes, Asher has a backpack on. All of it has to come off, AGAIN. Plus, I am wearing a jacket and a vest. Oh, and the DVD player, computer, ipod and camera all have to get turned on. We have to throw out the kids liquids in their sippie cups. And the security guards were taking their sweet time checking all of our paperwork. Even though we have already been through this once already in Denver. The security guards start giving us attitude, saying things like, "It's not our fault you are late for your plane." When I ask if Lucy really needs her shoes taken off; they say, "She's a person too."
Ugh.
So we get through security and run all 15 feet to our next plane which is scheduled to leave at 6:15, which means our kids are starving.
We get on the last plane of the day to Charlotte and ask if they are serving a snack box on this plane. They say nope, only pretzels. Fabulous.
After we get airbound, the merciful flight attendants drop a whole armful of pretzels, granola bars, biscotti cookies and Sun Chips into our laps.
So our kids ate sunchips and cookies for dinner.
Our DVD player dies 30 minutes into the flight. My laptop dies 10 minutes later. The only thing that saved us was the Target $1 spot. Which had beaded necklaces and temporary tattoos. We did that for the remainder of the flight.
We arrive in Charlotte. Matt and Asher head for Egypt, which is where our car is parked. And I go down to claim our luggage. None of it arrives.
While I am filling out the paperwork, Lucy decides it is a good time to poop up to her neck. And I have no clothes or wipes for her. So we head to the bathroom after US Airways gives us two crappy car seats to get us home and I have to bathe her in the sink. No joke.
Matt is still in Egypt, NOT YET AT THE CAR. That's right, I had enough time to not get luggage, stand in the enormous line, fill out paperwork AND give my daughter a bath.
Finally, she is all cleaned up and Matt has arrived. We head for the car, install car seats and head on our way to Asheville. Stop for some fast food and end up turned around in Charlotte. 45 minutes later, we pass the airport again on our way home. We hit Asheville and there is some snow on the ground. Lucy starts screaming for the final 40 minutes of the trip, like I haven't heard her cry since she was three months old.
Turns out she has pooped again. And is not happy about it.
We arrive at home, have no pajamas for the kids, or sound machines or clothes for yesterday since everything that fit them was packed for our 10-day trip.
On Thursday, the airline assured us that our bags would arrive at our house by 3pm.
Here it is Friday at 10am, still no bags.

Our kids did great, we kept our sense of humor. But the airlines sucked this year. It is nice to be home! It would be nice to get some clothes.

Oh the Weather Outside Is Frightful...

We got home late last night (more on THAT later and we had been warned that the roads were bad due to a snowstorm that hit Asheville yesterday. We came home to about two inches of snow, which was really fun to see since we had just left a snowfilled wonderland. We also felt very confident since we spent the whole week driving around in snow and ice covered dirt roads.

It was fun to see all of the snow, but it was not a major storm in the least. Our local news LOVES to make a big deal out of minor weather disturbances. Another local blog, Ashevegas loves to make fun of our local news station. Here is his coverage of their coverage:


What's in the news: Freaking out over a snowstorm that delivers an inch of snow

The local teevee news report had "team coverage" of our winter storm, and you'd think it was a blizzard the way they described it (see below) and the way it sent people running to the store and shut down Ashvegas. Businesses closed early and schools didn't even bother to open. Schools closed again Thursday. All because we received .7 inches of snow. The world ended for an official recorded snowfall of .7 inches of snow. Sure a few places got an inch or two more of that, but that's still not much.

What are we going to do when it really snows around here? The world clearly came to an end over a mere inch or two, so what's going to happen when we actually get a real snow of 6 inches? God help us.

Anyway, here we go:

The blustery winter blast that brought bone-chilling cold and walloped the mountains, holding us in an icy grip while winter's wrath pelted WNC with a mixed bag of precipitation and wind-chills
Did we use up all the cliches? Let me know, because I'd really like to get them out of the way. We've still got a lot of winter left.

Sheraldo and his Indiana Jones hat (now back in fashion what with the new moving coming out and all) posted his report from Madison County, noting that a "blinding snowfall pelted future I-26" early Tuesday, making it rough going for snow plows. "Blinding," Sheraldo? Really? Sheraldo said cars packed some snow down into a slick sheet of ice. He talked to a woman who might have had a frozen pipe under her trailer.

Larry Blunt, wearing some odd girl-glasses, noted that many churches didn't have services. He said the Blue Ridge Parkway closed. Then Mike Cuevas in the weather center said it would be windy and the wind chill at midnight would be below zero. Anybody out at midnight would have to be crazy.

Back outside, John Le followed around a guy in a wheelchair and gave us a lot of nat sound to help us feel how cold and brutal nd blizzard like the storm really was. The "extreme conditions" made downtown Ashvegas "ground-sub-zero," Le said. Give. Me. A. Fracking. Break. Le, wearing a Sherlock Holmes cap, talked to people waiting for the bus. One woman said she lived in Alaska and this weather was worse than that, while a dude from Connecticut made fun of all us Southerners for being weather wimps.

Keeping with the team coverage, Charu told us how DOT prioritizes which roads are cleared first - the main roads first, then the secondary roads. She said Long Shoals Road (close to WLOS studios) and Tunnel Road were not top priority roads for DOT, but she didn't really explain why roads like Long Shoals and Tunnel weren't top priorities.

In other news...
A tree fell in Arden and hit a house on Forest Ridge Drive. No injuries.

Back on the team weather report...
WLOSers, midway through their weather report, told us that Haywood County out west actually got the most snow from the "storm" and that there were triple the number of emergency calls to dispatchers. Shouldn't that have been the lead story? Heather Graf, who said he car wouldn't start Wednesday morning, said most wrecks were on Interstate 40, and were caused by people driving too fast.


Oh how it feels so good to be home! The one disappointment is that since there was SO MUCH (ugh) snow, they cancelled the kids Mothers Morning Out which I was totally counting on. Guess I have to take care of them today.