Polar Vortex of 2014

The Polar Vortex was coming and Andrew was going to be gone all week so the kids and I packed up and went to my parents.  I didn't want to be stuck at home by myself with two littles during this disaster.  It was a good thing too, as you shall see… 

 The kids moved into my parents house and pretty much took over the place right away. :-)

 Grandpa fell asleep watching Robin Hood for the 4 billionth time with Tommy.  Yay Netflix!

 Charlotte was so tired but she still wanted to see if Robin Hood ended up with Maid Marian.  Must. Not. Fall. Asleep. Must. Watch…

 Grandma got out Uncle Adam's old toys and Tommy had a ball! Teenage Mutenant Injun Tuttles!! Batman! Legos! Jets! Planes! Cars! Where does Grandma have rooms for all these bins of toys???

Mama got to play with toys too.  Grandma got out my old American girl doll collection.  So cool.

 We spent a lot of time under blankets watching movies.

 Charlotte did too! Only she learned a new trick which you will see in the next post.

 Grandma risked the SUBZERO TEMPERATURES (Liar, Liar) to take a super cool picture of the Sun Dog.

 We took baths! (I seem to remember a similar picture of someone else we know from 3 years ago… )

Here's Tommy taking a bath at Grandma's from 2011!

 Here's Tommy taking a bath in 2014! My, how he's grown!

We all did a lot of lounging while we were stuck snowed in the house.  

Tommy spent some quality time going around and sitting on everything in the shop.  The four-wheeler is the perfect size!

 We also checked out the boat!

Then after the snow emergency was lifted, we headed back to our house.  I wanted my parents to come back with me just to make sure the house was in good shape after the awful weather.  I had a feeling something was going to go wrong (because something usually does when Andrew leaves).  I was right!

During the extreme cold, our furnace had a wire come loose. The house hadn't been heated in who knows how long.  The temperature in the house when we walked in was 40 degrees.  It was like we were still outside.  Everything in the house was freezing!!! The countertops were so cold, you couldn't leave your hand resting on them for more than 5 seconds. I couldn't take off my shoes because the floors were so cold.  My dad was able to fix the furnace and get it running again.  So my parents, the kids, and I all left for two hours hoping the temps would rise quickly.  We got back to the house after 2 hours and it was 44 degrees.  It was going to be a long night.  I got out the space heater and electric blanket for Tommy's room and put him to bed. We had a fire in the fire place.  But man, it takes the house a LONG TIME to warm up from 40 degrees.  In the morning, it was 59 degrees.  Are you kidding me?? Sheesh.

 Charlotte didn't mind.  She wore layer upon layer and was perfectly happy.  Phew!

Something else I discovered before I went to bed were these water stains on the ceiling in the kitchen.  Oh shizz.   I shut the water off and went to bed.  What else could I do?

The next morning, it got bigger. :(
We called a plumber assuming it was a burst pipe and then spent the night in a hotel room.  (Turns out, a lot of people had plumbing issues after the cold temps so we had to wait a day for them to come out.)

The next morning we ate breakfast at the hotel. They had individual TVs for each of the tables.  Tommy LOVED watching Mickey in his Star Wars jammies in the restaurant.  I'm sure people got a kick out of that. :-)
The plumbers came out and said they believed it was only a leak and they were able to fix it right away.  We were extremely lucky that there wasn't more damage.  We can do the leftover repairs, thank goodness!
So even though it seemed disastrous at the time, it turned out the problems were not that bad and we survived! Whoo hoo!

All I have to say is thank goodness for my parents! Mom and Dad to the rescue! AGAIN. :-)  Thanks Ma and Pa! I seriously can't thank you enough!