Thundersnow!

I posted back in July about a Massive Thunderstorm that hit the St. Louis area on July 19^th and knocked out power to about half a million homes. Well, this last Thursday, November 30^th (which is also my Olivia's birthday) there was an equally massive snow storm. By the end of the night, nearly a quarter million homes were without power -- including once again my family, Heather and Ryan and Aunt Ruby.

What was happening earlier in the day made it even more interesting. As it turns out, my dog, Lucy has fleas. The cold weather drives them inside of course, and how I knew that she had them was that they started biting me! My ankles had been irritated and swollen for the last few days and after a visit to the doctor, he was pretty sure that they were flea bites that I'd scratched too much. Yuch.

So, I flea-bombed the house and took Lucy to Heather and Ryan's house for a flea bath. Lisa met me over there after work and we had dinner with the VanMeters and then watched Superman Returns on DVD. It had been sleeting almost all day by this point.

Very near the end of the movie, the power in the house flickered briefly, but stayed on. When we got home, there was a lot of cleaning up to do from the bug bombs and we had the girls lay on the couch while I went to wash their bed sheets and stuff. The sleet outside was freezing to really hard ice and getting ready to switch to snow. Two minutes after I had started the first load of laundry, the power went out.

The girls went to sleep in the living room while I did the best I could looking for sheets and blankets that were bagged up away from the bug spray. I went to bed assuming the power would be on Friday morning and...

Survey says?!... Yeah, it wasn't. And it was getting semi-cold in the house. With Olivia's birthday party approaching on Saturday (today), we were in a bind. So we packed up the car and went to my Dad and Linda's house for the day and night. We did a few maintenance things, like I shoveled the driveway and sidewalk a bit. Then we drove over, picked up Aunt Ruby and headed on over to my folks who had power.

We went sledding a bit, which was a first time for Reese. We ate dinner and went to bed. Then the next day, we called the house and the answering machine picked up, meaning we had power. Lisa left early with Heather to get the party going the best way possible. After a bit more sledding, this time with Olivia too, Ryan and I packed up all three girls and left Dad and Linda's, picked up Katie and headed to the party.

My wife did it again (with Heather's help, thanks Heather)! She pulled off a great party in a short time frame. I tell you, she has missed her calling. Anyway, congratulations to Lisa and Happy Birthday to Olivia.