Snow Day!

A lot could have been said about the Blizzard of 2011 in Detroit. But only if it had actually been a blizzard. Instead we got a respectable 6, maybe 7, inches of fresh new snow. No where near the projected 10-16 inches previously predicted. The threat of Snowmeggedon did however scare everyone into the grocery stores yesterday, clearing shelves of blizzard essentials like milk and bread and beer. The woman behind me in line had a cart full of Miller Light and Coke. "Have to be ready," she said. "Whatever gets you through," I said. I didn't realize how unprepared we were until today when discovering we didn't have any ice cream. How could I have been so careless? What if we had actually been snowed in for days? Note to self: Work on emergency preparedness skills.

Yesterday GM management told the Tech Center employees to play it safe and work from home today. There ended up being connectivity issues because of the numbers of people who tried logging on from home and Jon spent much of his day "working" on his snowblowing skills. I always enjoy having him home. The kids went to bed last night with their pajamas on inside out and backwards. A definite way to ensure the canceling of school. Some swear by the spoon under the pillow method but my kids prefer a more visual approach. Their tactic worked because the district called it before they were even asleep. I probably should have told them because I woke this morning at 6 am to Audrey and Nate celebrating their discovery that today would indeed be a snow day. Sometimes the best discoveries are those you make on your own.

Then they spent the majority of the day getting on each others nerves, so that was fun. However I was able to capture a few moments of sibling comradery. Most snow days you'll find my children outside, and (under the direction of Nate) engineering some sort of shelter. Today it was a tunnel. A very short tunnel, but a tunnel nonetheless.

I was a little afraid Audrey was about to take a shovel to the eye.

Teamwork.

This is his "Hey Mom, I'm working here, and I don't have time to smile for the camera" face.

"I think we should test it. Eli you go first."

Still needs some work.

My girl.

She was waving her feet around. Turns out it was more of a flail because she was stuck. The sound of her screaming was muffled by the snow. "Oh, that wasn't laughing? Sorry Audrey."

Not stuck anymore, just still digging.

"I see you Mom!" "I see you Eli!"

I went back into the house shortly after and made cookies. They followed me in later when the tunnel collapsed during Nate's attempt at passage. Their disappointment was assuaged though when they discovered the aforementioned cookies. You want to know how fast a family of five goes through a couple dozen fresh out of the oven chocolate chip cookies on a snow day? In about as much time as it took you to read that question. We ended the day with our annual tradition of watching the movie "Groundhog's Day." If tomorrow I woke up and had to repeat today, I'd be cool with that.