Icemageddon 2013: A Blessing in Disguise

I had another blog planned for this weekend, but then the winter storm came to town. What started as a simple ice day, turned into Icemageddon with people home bound for 3 days and many without power. We are talking 4-5 inches of sleet that after 24 hours turned into solid sheets of thick, slippery ice! Of course it is December and that means we already had full weekend planned that I had been looking forward to

At first I was a combination of stressed, freaked out and mad. Pier 1 didn't close Friday, only a delayed opening. I have only been there a month and I was so freaked out that I would be in trouble if I couldn't get to work. Chris was off and planned to drive me, but we couldn't get out of our driveway. Thankfully my boss was completely okay with me not coming in and I was able to stay home. Stress lifted.

Friday morning we stayed in bed and watched movies while we snuggled with the fur babies. We played outside where Dutchess and Gulliver had a blast sliding around. (Fenway wasn't having any of the outside activities) We built a fire and spent the afternoon just enjoying family time.

I loved every minute of it. Seriously, loved it. But was really hoping the roads would clear so that I could attend Christ Chapel's Ladies Christmas Brunch with my family Saturday morning and take the babies for their Santa photos Saturday afternoon. Especially Santa photos!

For those that don't know (I haven't had the heart to write a blog about it yet) we found out in October that Dutchess has Lymphoma. Long story short, we have limited time with her and have been taking each week at a time, trying to make the most of it and not thinking about what we know is coming soon. A week ago we had a scare that it might be almost time when she stopped eating. Thankfully the next day we learned she just didn't like the new oatmeal I bought to mix in her food. She has eaten like a piggie since we realized that and changed her food!

Santa photos with Dr. Young was one of those milestones I was praying Dutchess would make it to. She loves going bye-bye and she gets so excited when people make a fuss over her. I was so excited to make that memory with her and of course have the photo.  As much as I hoped and prayed things would go as planned, I knew in my heart when we went to bed Friday night that we would be iced in another day.

Saturday morning came and sure enough, Icemageddon was in full force. What little traction from the sleet there had been Friday, was now solid ice. Even though I was a little sad, we just rolled with it and planned on making the best of it!

We had breakfast in bed. We snuggled with the babies while we watch Hallmark Christmas movies. We played outside. We laughed. We cried. We cooked dinner and baked. We watched a crazy amount of movies. We drank wine. We made up songs. We danced to crazy made up songs. We spent real, quality time together with no worry of having to be anywhere or do anything. We made amazing memories. Memories we would have never made if it wasn't for being iced in.

Other than getting out to grab some lunch (Chili's never tasted so good and we were able to give our leftovers to a homeless man we passed on the way home) our Sunday was completely the same.

This afternoon, both Kipper and I were talking about how crazy the holiday season always is. We just go nonstop and it took a DFW wide ice storm to get everyone to slow down. For us Icemageddon was a blessing in disguise. Not only did it make us slow down, it was a reminder that we need to make time for weekends like this more often. Or at least a day here or there.

Even though we missed out on several holiday events we were excited about, tonight I am thanking God for this weekend.

Thanking him for helping our family to make memories with Dutchess that are far more special than a trip to have Santa photos. Memories that I will cherish for a lifetime.