Tracy's Baby Shower

The past few days I have been working on getting everything together and ready for Tracy's baby shower. I talked to Tracy many times about what games, food and other things she wanted for her baby shower. But she had no clue about the surprise aspect of her party! She thought the shower was on March 6, but today when she got home from lunch with Kelly she found a house full of friends and family ready to celebrate. She was pretty clueless about what was really going on until she walked up the steps and saw everyone! We played a few games, had some good food and delicious cake, and watched Tracy open lots of gifts. Here are some pictures....

Decorations I made

Tracy walking into the party

Emma (16 months old, has twin brother)

James (Emma's twin brother)

Tracy and Sarah

Bandit helping Tracy open gifts

Mary and Katelynn

Mandy watching from above

Tracy opening gifts

Diaper Cake that Mandy made

Clothesline decoration

Cookies made by Melissa

Cake made by Melissa

Today was a long day since we left the house at 10:30am and didn't get home until around 9pm, but it was fun! Ben and the boys left the baby shower once Tracy got there and went to another party for somebody in Rich's family while I stayed at the baby shower. They then went to Best Buy and came back to pick me up from Tracy's house. We then went to Chevy's at Arundel Mills for dinner, but while we were waiting for our table Zak started to feel sick. All of a sudden he was burning up and just looked horrible. He seemed to perk up a bit when we first sat down, but then he went downhill so we packed up our food and headed home. I gave him Tylenol and he was immediately asleep. I am sure it will be a long night with him waking up periodically though. Tomorrow we plan to stay home and relax since Ben flies to Kansas City on Monday for the week.

Sick

This week. did not go as planned, but that is the story of my life. I am such a planner and always get upset when things don't go as planned. Having kids has definitely made me become more flexible with plans, but it still bothers me at times.

Tuesday morning I woke up with a sore throat and the boys woke up coughing and snotty. When Ben got home that afternoon he also was not feeling 100%. By Wednesday all four of us were feeling pretty miserable with bad colds. So the boys and I did not make it to playgroup because we were all sick. On Wednesday night I was awake most of the night because the boys continually took turns waking up throughout the night. As always, Ben slept through it all but that is fine because I knew he had to get up and go to work. Thursday morning Ben woke up feeling even worse as did the boys and I. Ben thought about staying home from work, but he had to get to the CIA for a job that had been scheduled so off he went. I ended up calling the pediatrician and making an appointment for the boys to be seen at 10am. We bundled up and headed out the door. The pediatrician looked the boys over and came to the conclusion that they both had a bad cold. She said Ryder had one lung that sound "junky" so we should use the nebulizer to help loosen it all up and hopefully allow Ryder to cough it out. I was told if he needed it more than every 4 hours or if he didn't improve then she would prescribe him oral steroids, but she didn't want to start them yet. So we headed back home and the boys took a 4 hour nap. I knew they did not feel well at all!

Friday morning Ben woke up not feeling well still so he decided to use a sick day and stay home from work. The boys woke up with faces covered in snot and Ryder was having a productive cough (which is actually good because it means he was clearing out the junk from his lung). We went out this morning to run a quick errand and then spent the rest of the day relaxing at home. The boys took a nap again today. Tonight the boys were definitely acting like they feel better. They spent most of the evening running around the living room doing flips and rolls with each other and just cracking up about it. I am also feeling better than earlier in the week, but still battling the annoying lingering effects of a cold (stuffy nose, tired, etc). Ben seems to be feeling better as well.

I am happy to say that we did not get hit by a horrible storm which has been predicted for Wednesday- Friday. This morning we did have about one inch of snow and the wind was really scary. Harford County closed schools today mainly because of the wind and bus safety. It continued to snow on and off throughout most of the day, but we probably only got a total of 2 inches. It was blown around so much that it is hard to tell. I think our winds were sustained at 35mph and gusts up to 60mph is what I saw on TV earlier. Tonight it has calmed down again and hopefully we will not see anymore snow this winter! I am scared to look at the forecast so I really am not sure what the upcoming weather looks like.

I am hesitant to write this, but here I go. Tonight I did receive an e-mail from the genetic counselor who works with Ryder geneticist. She said they have received the results of Ryder's MRI from Monday. The good news is his myelination is age-appropriate and there is no sign of volume loss. But they did find non-specific periventricular white matter lesions on his brain in the MRI. The genetic counselor explained these lesions are usually caused by infection or an ischemic event (lack of blood flow to the brain such as stroke). In the e-mail she told me she will be talking to the geneticist at the beginning of the week and will get back to me with more information and recommendations. So, I really don't know exactly what this all means. Of course the first thing I did was look online for information about this type of lesion and I did find lots of things about them. There are so many things that this could be so I am not even going to start mentioning possibilities yet. Once I get the call at the beginning of the week with more information then I will make another post to keep everyone updated. I want to explain the reason I said I am hesitant to post this is because I really just don't know what exactly this all means or what I will find out this week, but I wanted to keep everyone updated about all of Ryder's testing. Ryder has his therapy class on Monday (missed for the last month from testing and weather cancellations) and then he has his opthamology appointment at Hopkins in the afternoon.

It's Been A Few Days

I feel like I have not posted on here for a while even though it has only been a few days. This was a very long weekend....

Friday night we went to dinner with Rich, Laura & Haleigh at a new place in Glen Burnie. It was supposed to be a sports bar, but once we got inside and looked at the menu we realized it was more of a seafood place. The service was horrible and it took forever to get food and don't even try to get a drink refill! Ben got a Cheese Steak Sandwich, Rich had a crab cake, Laura had a burger, the boys had chicken nuggets and I had Salmon fillet with crab meat on top. I thought my food was really good, but we decided that we would not be going back because of the horrible service and higher than expected prices. After we finished eating we all headed to Marley Station Mall to let the boys run around in the play area. We were then kicked out the door when the mall closed at 9pm and headed home. On our way home my stomach started to bother me, but nothing too bad. Once we got home we put the boys to bed, I took a shower and went to bed.

That is when my LONG weekend started. Around 1:30am I jumped out of bed and rushed to the bathroom because my stomach was not feeling good at all. I then spent the next 4 hours in the bathroom throwing up constantly. I was finally able to get in the shower to clean up and get back in bed. I continued to get sick about every 30 minutes until about 7am. Ben got up with the boys and let me stay in bed because it was obvious I did not feel well at all. Around 9am Ben decided to take the boys to the mall so they could run around and get out of the house. They were knocking on our bedroom door and didn't understand why I was not going with them, but they had fun once they got to the mall. I got sick a few more times, but finally fell asleep for a few hours. I snacked on some crackers Saturday evening as my stomach started to calm down. The boys had a pretty lazy afternoon once they got home from the mall...

Sunday morning I woke up with my stomach feeling a little better, but I then had a massive headache and was dizzy/weak from not eating. We all got dressed and went to the grocery store and BJ's. While at BJ's we looked at TV's because we knew our big screen was dying and planned to buy a new one with our tax money. I felt pretty good until we got to the check-out at the grocery store where I started to feel really dizzy and sick to my stomach once again. When we got home I laid down to take a nap. In the end, I am pretty sure I had food poisoning from dinner on Friday night. My blood sugars stayed pretty normal which usually means it was not a virus or infection.

At BJ's we did find the TV we wanted to buy because it was on sale and had a feature that we had not thought about having. We called Rich to see if he would be able to come over with the truck and help Ben get the TV and entertainment center from BJ's. So Sunday evening we got our new TV! It is a 42 inch LCD with a built-in Blu-Ray player which will also play DVD's and CD's. We had originally been looking at a 47-50 inch TV, but decided the 42 inch would fit in our living room better and the built-in player was an awesome feature! We had to re-arrange the living room for the arrival of the new TV so here are some pictures...

Last night I tried to eat some dinner, but every time I smelled food I would feel extremely sick to my stomach. So I snacked on some crackers again before heading to bed. This morning I woke up feeling pretty good compared to this weekend. I have had a headache all day, but I was able to eat a banana and then a turkey sandwich for lunch.

This morning I dropped Zak off at daycare around 8:45am and then Ryder and I headed to Johns Hopkins hospital for his sedated MRI. I was nervous having him go under general anesthesia, but knew he would do fine since he has been under twice before with no problems. They let me come into the back and hold him while he fell asleep using the gas mask. I then laid him down on the bed and had to go back to the waiting room. They told me they would be putting in an IV and breathing tube as precautions and the scan would take about 40 minutes. I anxiously watched the clock and finally about 1.5 hours later they came to get me. When I got to the back Ryder was still sound asleep and it took him a while to wake up so we stayed in the recovery area a little longer than normal. Once he was fully awake he was allowed to drink some apple juice. After about 30 minutes of keeping the juice down they took out the IV and sent us on our way. I am hoping to hear from the doctor with the results soon, but not sure when. The boys are now watching Madagascar 2 and playing together.

On Wednesday I am going to try and take the boys to playgroup. On Thursday Ryder has a session with his special educator and then a speech evaluation in the afternoon. We have decided to seek private speech therapy to help work on his oral motor skills (chewing) in addition to the Early Intervention therapy he receives every other week.

Therapy Update

Today Ryder had two different therapists come to the house for sessions. At noon the OT came to work on feeding during lunchtime as well on fine motor skills. She was so happy to see that Ryder was using his tongue to move food around in his mouth which he was not doing on her last visit. She did notice he seems to only chew on his left side so she showed me some different things to try in order to get him to chew on the right side as well. She also showed me some "games" to play using peanut butter to help strengthen his muscles used for chewing as well as getting him to start using his upper lip to pull things off a spoon. Both boys thought the peanut butter games were tons of fun so hopefully they will not figure out I am tricking them into doing therapy exercises! She thinks that I should look into getting an evaluation done for Ryder at a feeding clinic to find help for his weight gain issues. After mealtime we moved to working on the stairs. Once again the OT was really happy to see Ryder has made progress with going up the stairs, but we still need to work on going down them. After that we moved to the playroom and worked on some fine motor and hand strengthening skills. We have discovered Ryder has very weak muscles in his hands which can cause some issues later on with writing so it is good to work on strengthening them now.

As the OT was finishing up the PT arrived at the house. The PT was coming to do an evaluation because I voiced concerns to the case manager about some PT-related issues. Finally, after a few months of asking for PT it happened! The OT and PT talked a bit since they tend to work on some similar skills. Then the OT left and the PT did her full evaluation of Ryder's skills. After watching Ryder jump, run, walk, go up & down the stairs, throw a ball, kick a ball, catch a ball, and so much more she then did a hands-on exam to feel if he was tight anywhere, loose anywhere or low/high tone. We also talked about the aqua therapy evaluation and she disagrees and thinks that Ryder would benefit form it. She works with aqua therapy as well so she plans to meet us at a local indoor pool periodically to do some aqua therapy work. Apparently, there is a local indoor pool who has agreed to let her bring her Infant & Toddlers kids to the pool for aqua therapy for a fee of about $10 (still working out the exact details). She said he has skills around 24 month level which is not the 25% delay required to qualify for services, but she says his skills are atypical which does qualify him. This means that even though he is able to do the age-appropriate skills (about 6 months behind) he does not do them "correctly" or consistently. So her final decision for Ryder includes:

1) Periodic aqua therapy sessions.

2) 1-2 times per month PT sessions.

3) Possible orthotics. She is going to bring another PT with her on another visit who specializes in orthotics to see what she thinks. Ryder does roll his ankles and walk on the inside of his feet along with having one leg longer than the other.

I am so glad that I remained strong and continued to ask for this PT evaluation. She agrees that he is not really delayed, but it is more about quality and not quantity. He has lots of skills, but not all of them are consistent or executed correctly (such as using different muscles to compensate for low muscle tone in the trunk/core).

Total Disaster

The boys and I were looking forward to spending the day in Annapolis with Jamison & Josephine since Colleen is back in school and the kids are off for the week. I knew parking was an issue in downtown Annapolis, but Colleen had said it was do-able during the day and night was the impossible time. So, against my better judgement, we made the hour or so drive to Annapolis and I was shocked at what I found. I was hesitant about going into downtown, but I wanted to help out and hang out with the kids for the day.

As I drove into downtown Annapolis I discovered there was no parking to be found and the parking garages were full. Also, I found that many of the roads are still only 1 lane in addition to the fact that schools had a 2 hour delay which put me right in the middle of the chaos. This led to massive traffic jams, horns honking and attitudes going crazy. I was stressed, but still dealing with it and spent about 30 minutes navigating around the streets looking for parking. Then the real trouble started which sent me into a tailspin. I turned down Cathedral Street only to be met with a car coming head-on at me up the street since it was only 1 lane still. The car would not back up the few feet to get to the end of the street and let me through so I had to back-up 3/4 of the street and turn down a 1-way dead end street so this car could get up the street! I then had to figure out how to turn around on this tiny side street with snow piles and cars parked. I ended up getting stuck in a snow pile while trying to turn around! For the normal person, this would not be a big deal and you would figure out how to get out of the situation. But for me, it was the end of the world because I have an enormous fear of driving in, on, or around snow so I froze. Luckily there was a guy walking by who helped get my car out and turned around.

By that time I was in tears and felt like I was going to throw up! I was also getting worried because I knew I needed to get to Joey & Jay. I navigated some more streets and ended up driving down another side street that was still full of snow/ice which frayed the last of my nerves. The boys were now crying and yelling because they had been in the car for close to 2 hours. Finally, I called it quits and made my way out of downtown Annapolis and parked in the Grauls parking lot which is 1.2 miles away from where I needed to be. I was sobbing, shaking and had no clue what to do.

I then started to text another family member who also lives in Annapolis to see if she could watch Joey & Jay since I was not going to drive back into downtown. After much back and forth, some name-calling and rude talking by her and myself, I made a decision. I got the stroller out of the car, put the boys in it and we started to walk. I texted most everyone in the family to let them know I was on my way to the house and that I had talked to Joey so she knew I was on my way and things were fine. Well, after I was already about half way there (or a little more) I got a text from this family member in Annapolis saying to turn around and go home. It became obvious that she had waited to make that decision long enough for the boys and I to have made it a good distance into our 1.2 mile walk. I was so mad and in tears again. I made sure to talk to Joey again to make sure things were fine and they were taken care of and then I turned the stroller around and walked back to the car.

Making the decision to walk was the best I could do to keep my word and watch Joey & Jay today. The sidewalks were not cleared so we walked on the side of the road for most of the time, but there were other people walking with us as well and the cars were all being very nice about staying away from the shoulder. I have an honest fear of driving in, on, or around snow so I made a decision that would work for me and get to Joey & Jamison. I really hate what happened today, but I can't change it now. In the end Joey & Jay were fine and I was able to calm myself down enough to drive back home.

Now I do know that we won't be making a trip to downtown Annapolis until summertime because the snow has taken over down there. I do envy everyone who has no fear of driving in the snow because I find myself stuck at home most of winter because of my fear....

On a side note....I got a call from Hopkins to give me instructions for Ryder's MRI on Monday. We need to be there and checked in at 9:25am which means it will be an early day to get Zak to daycare and us to Hopkins during rush hour traffic! Ryder is not allowed to eat anything after midnight. He can have a total of 8oz of water/apple juice/Pedialyte between midnight-7am and then he can't have anything after 7:30am. This poses another issue...I can't feed Zak in front of Ryder in the morning so I will have to drop off a very grumpy child to daycare for a longer day than he is used to. I feel so bad for Ryder to have to go through the sedation and MRI. I feel so bad for Zak to have to not eat or drink in the morning and to have to spend the whole day at daycare (he usually only spend 2-3 hours when he goes).

Now to try and convince the boys to nap so I can lay down. I still feel like I need to throw up and have a massive headache...

Aqua Therapy Evaluation

I have been looking forward to our aqua therapy evaluation for a few weeks and it finally happened this morning. I dropped Zak off at daycare which did not go smoothly. He has not been there for a while because of the snow and he was not happy about me leaving him. I felt so bad, but I knew he would be fine once I was out of sight.

Ryder and I made the 20 minute drive to the aqua therapy location. It was very easy to find and pretty close to the house so it seemed perfect. Once again, I will say that I was just so excited about this appointment because it seems like the pediatrician and therapists all felt this would be great for him. Not a "fix" because there is nothing to fix, but a definite help in strengthening his core muscles in the hopes of helping him have less falls and eventually master the stairs. We went into the main therapy room with the head PT (and a college student who was shadowing her) for her to do the evaluation.

First, the PT laid Ryder down on a mat and felt his legs, range of motion and general muscle tone of the core muscles. They also measured his legs because they noticed 1 was longer than the other. The PT found that his left leg is longer than the right which we did know. She took off his shoes, socks, and pants then let him get down and play with the toys so she could just observe his skills and during this she also took his medical history from me. She immediately was shocked with his skill level, in a good way. She told me that after feeling his muscle tone she didn't expect him to be able to run, jump, or kill a ball. Ryder is able to do all of that, but is pretty clumsy with it a lot of the time. She then asked him to walk on a very low balance beam which he had trouble doing and then she pulled out 3 different steps of varying heights (more like wooden step stools). He was able to step up on his own at all three heights, but would jump off instead of step off. She finally convinced him to step down off the 3 heights as well. She looked at me, laughed, and said he was making a liar out of me because he was able to do steps! I then pointed out to her that he will only step up with the right foot and down with the left foot. So she worked with him for about 15 minutes until he finally stepped up with the left foot, but only if she would hold his right foot down and give him no option.

Once she was done with the evaluation she gave me her recommendations for Ryder. She said that right now he is not delayed for gross motor skills (which I knew) although he is clumsy and not always coordinated with his movements (which I knew). Then she said that she feels he would not benefit from aqua therapy and my heart sank. She explained that he does have low muscle tone, but that some other muscles have compensated which is giving him the ability to do all of the gross motor skills. His body has learned to function using muscles that are not normally utilized for walking, running, jumping, and kicking. She said the best thing for now is to just keep doing what we are doing and continue to keep his other muscles strong and functioning for him. That is good news because his body has learned its own way to move so that he can function. That is bad news because now he won't benefit from the therapy in which all of the other therapists and doctors felt would be a good thing for him! My heart sank because this therapy was pretty much the only option everyone has offered as something to help Ryder and now it is no longer a good option for him.

While taking Ryder's medical history she discovered that he has feeding issues (chewing, biting, etc) along with the language delays. She said that they have an excellent OT who specializes in feeding issues, but she was going on maternity leave in April. However, she is going to pass on Ryder's information to her and see if they can fit him in before the maternity leave. In the meantime, they also have a speech therapist that works on oral motor things (has a lot to do with the chewing aspect of feeding) who has openings on Wednesdays. So she is also going to give her Ryder's information and I should hopefully hear from them soon. So instead of finding aqua therapy to help with low muscle tone we walked out with a good possibility of starting private speech therapy to work on oral motor concerns....so that is great news!

The part of this evaluation that really upset me is when the PT said she thinks that Ryder's issues with going up and down the stairs is behavioral! She said since he is ABLE to go up and down stairs that he should have no reason to not do it all the time. This upset me because I am the one with him everyday watching him struggle and it is not that he is just choosing not to go down the stairs. Along with the fact that the OT who works with him also feels his low muscle tone is affecting his ability on the stairs along with eating and drinking. Yes, Ryder can go up 1 step (only with right foot) and down 1 step (only with left foot) on his own with his own. But he can't do multiple steps and in order to be successful in his daily living he needs to be able to do a full flight of stairs multiple times a day...that is just a fact of life when living in a 3 story townhouse!

Sorry for the long rant, but I am just not happy with the final outcome of the appointment. I am very happy the PT feels he does not need additional therapy! Also, I am happy that we might have found some additional feeding help. I am disappointed because I know he has issues with the stairs and all of the other therapists and doctors felt the aqua therapy was the answer...now we need to find another route.

Last night it started to snow around 5pm, but very small flakes and not too bad. There was probably about an inch or so on the ground by midnight. Overnight it turned to rain which melted away the inch or so we had gotten in the evening. This did create some ice this morning though. Around 8am it started to snow once again which created a small layer of snow on everything.

I went outside to clean off the car and turn on the defrost to get rid of the ice around 8:30am and then the boys and I got into the car at 8:45am. We had to go to the pediatrician this morning for Ryder's pre-op appointment to get a clean bill of health for his sedated MRI which is Monday morning. The pediatrician said he was all good to have the sedation and then we talked a little bit about all of the testing and what not Ryder has been getting. Our pediatrician is also a developmental pediatrician so he has a lot of knowledge about delays. His feelings about everything was that with the test results we have so far he would say that Ryder does have PDD-NOS which is on the Autism Spectrum. Of course, if the MRI shows anything then that might change, but for now that is what he is thinking. He is also interested in seeing what the geneticist figures out from all of the tests, but he did tell me not to be surprised if we don't get a name or syndrome. I then told him we are well-aware that we may never have a name for what is going on and we are just doing the testing in order to see if there is anything else we can do to help Ryder such as therapy and what not. He also agreed that Ryder will really benefit from the aqua therapy because he commented on how low his muscle tone has become since the last time he saw Ryder.

As for measurements...Ryder's head is still measuring small. He was exactly 25 pounds with just a diaper on and is now 36 inches tall.

Tomorrow I will take Zak to daycare and the take Ryder to his aqua therapy evaluation. I am really looking forward to see what the PT has to say about his muscle tone and how the aqua therapy will benefit him. On Thursday the boys and I are going to Annapolis to hang out with Joey & Jay since Colleen has school and the kids do not. Although, the rate we are going Colleen may not be back in school yet either. Schools were closed once again today, but they are all saying they plan to open tomorrow!

Ben got home around 10am on Friday and immediately started to dig our the spot for his work truck. Then I handed the boys off to him and went back to lay down since I had a very trying week. When I woke up I realized he took the boys outside to play while he dug out our car from under all of the snow. The boys were having a blast, the car was getting cleared, and I felt better after getting a nap. I was still upset about the news Ben had given me when he got home. He told me that he would be spending this coming week in VA also! Then he will be home for a week and then in Kansas City for the first week of March for training which we have known about for a while. And then he will have to go back to VA for another install either the second or third week of March. This means in the next 4-5 weeks he will be away for 3 weeks! This news had sent me into a downward spiral after the horrible week I had along with the news of another snow storm set to hit us on Monday.

Yesterday we took the boys to Chuck E Cheese while the car was getting new brakes. They had so much fun riding on all of the different things and playing all of the games. We still have a good number of tokens left to take them back another time.

Today we went to the grocery store to stock up for another long week and possible snow storm. Zak did not behave well at all for this trip which set me off into a bad mood. Once we got home and put the groceries away I escaped on my own to go out and get some sushi for lunch. This was the first time I had been out in the car all alone for a long time and it was much needed. I would have stayed out longer, but I had a bad headache and decided it was time for a nap.

This evening Zak was playing with HIS kitty and she really does love him. She lets him do just about anything he wants to her while she still runs away from Ryder a lot of the time.

Here are some pictures to show that the snow has started to melt...

As for this upcoming possible snow storm...there is only one thing that all of the forecasters agree on and that is that we won't know what this storm will bring until it is here. This storm seems to be giving everyone a difficult time to decide what exactly it will drop on us. As of right now the two possibilities seem to be: 3-6 inches Monday afternoon into Tuesday or 6-12 inches Monday into Tuesday. Some have said it might only be rain depending on the temperature and others say it could be sleet and ice. I am preparing for the worst (any amount of snow!), but hoping for the best (rain to melt the snow we still have). I have already cancelled Ryder's eye appointment for Monday since Ben will not be home to pick Zak up from daycare (I wouldn't make it back in time) and we might cancel his pediatrician appointment for Tuesday morning depending on what the weather brings.

Shoveling

We survived two blizzards in 5 days! This is very unusual weather for Maryland and I hope to never deal with this again. This morning while the boys ate breakfast I went outside to shovel the front pathways and the back pathway for the dogs. The wind is still pretty strong so it is very cold outside and this snow is very heavy. I started to get very frustrated while shoveling in the front because each time I would dump a shovel-full of snow onto our mountain of snow it would just fall back down into the pathway. After I was done with the pathways I stared at the car for a few seconds and decided to call it quits. I couldn't leave the boys inside alone for too long because who knows what trouble they would find and I honestly didn't know where to put all of that snow. Also, I am not planning to go anywhere anytime soon since I refuse to drive on icy or snow covered roads ever since my accident while I was in high school. I generally sit inside and let the sun do the work because once the car is cleared off that usually means the roads are too!

Today I did feel bad or guilty though. Around 9:30am everyone from the court was outside digging pathways, clearing off cars and cleaning out parking spots. I was literally the only person in the court that was not outside and it made me feel extremely guilty. There are only two cars in the whole court that have not been touched yet and one of those is mine. The other belongs to our neighbor who also has an SUV which they have cleared off and taken out for a drive. I can't do everything on my own so I chose to get the pathways done since that could effect the neighbors and I didn't want to make them mad. I also am not really sure how to even go about cleaning off the car because I will not drive my car out of the spot like everyone else has because once again my fear of driving on these roads comes in. Oh well, hopefully nobody will be mad or dislike us because of my fear or lack of ability and motivation!

I talked to Ben this morning and he said that there is a slim change that they might finish early enough to drive home this afternoon, but more likely they would be coming home tomorrow. He knows that I have not cleared the car or our second parking spot which is completely covered in 30+ inches of snow since it has been sitting empty for the whole storm.

Here are some pictures I took while I was outside this morning...

the boys' slide

our backyard and the street

icicles on the neighbor's house

looking out our back door

the backyard

cozy coupe buried under snow

that gate is 24inches tall

the infamous car

looking out the front door

front pathway

mountain of snow