Monday, March 2, 2009

overflowing

Subtitle: Gymnastics, Wii Domination, and a Blizzard

The last weekend of February/first weekend of March 2009 came and went with a bang. I'll try to be heavy on pictures and short on words, but we all know it's tough for me to be stingy with my words. So bear with me as I document the last 3 days!


Saturday after the rain walk (where I took the photos of the daffodils in the post below...and it's a good thing I did it then!) I went with Mollyanne to the GymDawgs meet! It was my second meet of the season (both times compliments of the Gurleys) and we had a lot of fun without our husbands. Mollyanne actually managed to make it like 3 whole hours without throwing up, which I took to be a huge success...especially since we were way up high smack in the middle of a crowd, far from a bathroom. It wouldn't have been a pretty situation. Anyway, so I guess the meet was also a huge success in the sense that UGA won big time!! I always enjoy any event where we beat Florida.
Our score is the one on the left!

Here we are post-meet. Please forgive my bangs for having a stupid gap in the middle, and please forgive Mollyanne for not pointing this out to me.

After the meet and sitting in traffic for like an hour, I re-joined my husby and we spent the evening at his parents' house. Two uncles were visiting from out of town (Pennsylvania and Florida) so it was cause for a get-together. We enjoyed dinner and then I took the liberty of beating not one Mr. Bates, not two Mr. Bateses, but THREE Mr. Bateses at Wii Bowling. The entire older generation! And I've beat Matt many a time before, so let's just count that as all 4 Bates menfolk. There was some serious domination going on, and more than just a few tears. After my last winning game, though, Mom Bates wanted her chance to uphold her generation's bowling reputation. I was pretty tired and sore from my 3 intense games (seriously, when you're this out of shape, Wii Bowling can do you in), so I didn't play my best game and I let her win. May the record state, though, that her winning score from that game was lower than my lowest scores in any of my winning games. And I promise I'm not just a sore loser. :)



Action shot of me bowling as Dad B. contemplates his impending doom.






Me, Dad B., Uncle David, and Uncle Terry.

Sunday morning we enjoyed spending time with God and friends at Vineyard. We had post-church lunch plans to meet back up with Matt's family for another meal before the uncles left town again. We were super excited when, near the end of church, the raindrops on the metal roof turned into something a bit louder and more distinct-- ice!! We left church to drive to the restaurant as it sleeted, and we received text messages from friends driving through Atlanta telling us they were in a blizzard and it was coming our way!!! Like any other person who has spent the entirety of their life in Georgia, I get really excited at the prospect of snow. It is equal parts excitement due to the actual snow itself and then the chance of school and life shutting down for a time. Midway through lunch, the sleet had turned to big ol' snowflakes, much to the delight of everyone at Rafferty's! Everyone was cheering and staring out the windows. We finished up quickly so that we could drive home before the roads got too treacherous.

Here's Matt in the parking lot...it had snowed this much in only like an hour!!! This is unthinkable in Athens!! We drove home on the Loop at a brisk 10 mph...we couldn't see anything!!
I have never seen this kind of snow around town...mainly because the few times it has ever snowed before it's been in the middle of the night and it's done by morning. So you only see the aftermath (as it quickly melts) and you CERTAINLY don't drive anywhere!! Anyway, we made it home safely and wasted no time introducing Lola to the winter wonderland. At first she was kind of scared and uncertain, but she quickly discovered that snow is the best thing EVER for a dog!








I took TONS of pictures, but to be honest, posting pictures on here drives me crazy!! Maybe I'm just an amateur blogger, but every time I put up a picture it makes all these weird spaces elsewhere in the post and I have to re-center and re-left and re-size my text...it's a pain. Maybe I'm doing it wrong, or maybe other people are just way more patient than me. Anyway, they announced last night that schools were closed (YAAAAAAY for me!) and we figured Matt's bank would be delayed at the very least. Lots of people had lost power and ours had been flickering off and on all day, so we spent the evening with candles lit and flashlights nearby in case it went out for good (it didn't). We slept in our guest room...due to all the snow and ice, trees and limbs were falling left and right. Since the two trees in front of our house had already fallen down (sad), there was nothing left to threaten our roof. The back of the house, though, is surrounded by tall tall trees and we'd already spent the night listening to them crack and crash down (timberrrrrr!)...Matt figured we'd be safer in the front room. If a tree did happen to crash through our roof, it would most likely end up in the bedroom where we normally sleep. That thought doesn't help a girl sleep peacefully, so the guest room it was. As it turned out, nothing crashed into us, but there were a TON of branches down in our yard this morning!

Matt needed to be at work by 10:30, so at 10:00 we began trying to dig the Pathfinder out of the snow. We live in a cul-de-sac at the bottom of a (rather steep, as it turns out) hill. Funny how you can live somewhere for 3 years and never notice what a steep hill it is. We found out today when Matt tried to drive over snow and ice and it just wasn't happening. Poor two-wheel-drive baby SUV. Anyway, it turned out to be a great opportunity to meet and bond with our neighbors...we all had a common goal of getting out of our neighborhood on this day. Many ideas and tries and an hour and a half later, a team of menfolk succeeded in pushing the Pathfinder and Matt up the hill, and he was able to get to work.
So it's just been me and Lola holding down the fort and watching the snow melt. Left with only a lightweight Civic to drive, we've opted to lay low here at home...I don't care for driving even in the best of circumstances!! So I've gotten some chores done around the house and done some serious regretting that I didn't go grocery shopping on Saturday. Oh well. Matt should get home soon and it will be on to our next great adventure!!

2 comments:

  1. i love the doggie footprints! a tree actually fell on my parents' house last fall, on the room that my mom uses as her piano studio. fortunately, she wasn't teaching lessons at the time. thank goodness for homeowner's insurance! glad nothing fell on your place!

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  2. I too thought the footprint picture was great. And going back to your comments about the meet, I was looking at the same camera as you so how could I notice your bangs?
    And I'm pretty sure you were just relieved I didn't throw up on/near you, or have to try to miss all the people in close proximity to us or try to explain it afterward. =) Great post!

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