Blizzard of 2010

What a crazy week. It all started last Thursday. As we were getting ready for school Gabi came running upstairs and said "Andy threw up and I made him go into the bathroom". So I ended up staying home with Andy that day. He never got sick again, but he was tired all day and did not want to eat. He is just now starting to eat again. Then early Friday morning I got sick. I got the same version of the illness that Chad had two weeks before. Endless hours in the bathroom violently sick. I lost 10 lbs in 8 hours. Chad stayed home and played Mr. Mom. He took kids to school and went to the store to stock up for the incoming snowstorm.

Saturday it snowed all day and we got about 20 inches of snow. I was still too weak to help so Chad shoveled all of the sidewalks and enough of the driveway to get his car out. I then got up Sunday morning and shoveled the whole length of the driveway and dug out the minivan. Sunday afternoon we were able to walk to the park and go sledding. Unfortunately we lost one sled and left our others in NY because we usually can sled there. So we were down to one little saucer sled. I tried to buy more, but stores do not have sleds anymore. Only swim suits and pool floats. The big kids had a blast. Andy had fun for a little while but then was cold and tired. When he was done and waiting to leave he wandered off across the untouched snow. He made it to the fence, but on the way back got scared and I had to go rescue him.

Monday and Tuesday we went about our business with the knowledge that more snow was coming. And Tuesday night it started to snow again. In the middle of the night Evan came to tell us that he had "accidentally thrown up in his bed". So I leave Chad in charge of Evan and go check on the room. He sleeps in the top bunk and had covered his entire bed. I take his comforter down to the wash where it does not really fit into the washing machine. I wash it anyway. An hour later when still up with Evan I check on it. At least it has run through the wash but is in no way clean. At this point I am already too snowed in to get to a laundromat so I just bundle it up and have to wait a couple days. GROSS! Evan continued to get sick all night until about 8:30 in the morning. Then he laid basically comatose the rest of the day not even wanting the TV on. About 5:00 I was able to get him to take a shower and drink something. He perked up and by 8:00 had rejoined the family. Thursday morning he woke up fine.

Meanwhile, the snow kept coming. We got at least 24 more inches. Chad was working from home so I tried to keep up with the shoveling all day by myself. I went out at 11:00 and we already had a foot. So I shoveled all the sidewalks and the deck and the entire driveway. Then I continued to shovel the sidewalks every hour to two hours. In between I took care of Evan and took Gabi sledding. Andy wanted no part of the snow. I convinced him to go out in the evening and at least take a picture. We took the picture and he was done. Chad went out at 6:00 and took a turn shoveling the sidewalks. He got up Thursday morning and shoveled them once more as the wind had recovered everything. Then he dug out his car at the bottom of the driveway. So now I will go and attempt to dig out the van and shovel the rest of the driveway and apply salt everywhere. I am pretty sure I got more snow in the last week than I ever got in a week in upstate NY. This is truly crazy.

Gabi is the only one of us unscathed by the stomach bug. Hopefully she makes it through!!