In case you haven't heard . . .

You may have heard, or read some news item something like this in the past day or so (if you're not from my neck of the desert, that is):

It was a winter wonderland that blanketed much of Las Vegas last night. A winter storm dumped more than eight inches of snow in Henderson, and the heaviest snowfall hit the southeast Vegas valley just after 7:45 last night, where three inches had accumulated. Snow blanketed Mount Charleston, packing powder at more than eleven inches. The weather prompted several businesses to close up shop early. The snow also closed down several highways last night, that are still shut down this morning . . . .
(Copyright 2008 Metro Networks Communications Inc., A Westwood One Company)

The above picture was taken late yesterday afternoon. The snow began about eleven--the time I picked my children up with their gingerbread houses (see previous post). Even by that point in the day, the snow was a freakish hardly ever heard of occurrence. It was only going to get less believable as time wore on.

A wee bit of back story, aside from the usual Christmas crazies, my dear M has been teething. Her tiny mouth decided that now was the time to produce all four year old molars. So we have alternated good sleeping nights and bad sleeping nights. Tuesday night, I got to bed at 11:30, admittedly a tactical error given the possibilities. M had me up from 3am til 5:15 and then the boys who do not sleep (BWDNS for short) got up at 6ish, so I gave up and went running so as not to kill them. So, I was tired, my house was a mess and when I came home from parent-teacher conferences, my goal was just to hold it together through an afternoon of playdates/ taking care of my friend's children while she did her conference (with no ability to match her gingerbread super mom prowess), take CE to basketball practice and slide them all into bed before DH got home from a long evening of tithing settlement and other appointments at the church.

Instead, the mom friend who attempted to drop off her daughter to play with CE, couldn't get her SUV up my street, so she came inside with her other two children. And then when my friend returned from the P/T conference, she slid into my driveway, so she didn't even try to make it up the street, she just came inside. That brought the grand total of people in my house on a crazy snowy afternoon to 11 children (9 and under) and 3 mommies, one of whom is great with child. It was about 3pm.



The afternoon included playing in the snow, calling various church leaders to cancel youth activities, basketball practices, tithing settlement and other appointments. And checking in periodically with DH's homeward exodus. Because the plan was that he would help me push the mommies up the street with their children so everyone could be home safely in their houses before dark. DH left work around 3pm. He got home a little before 9pm and it was still snowing. The roads weren't that bad, really, if you know how to drive in snow and have the equipment to do so. But this is the desert. How many people here actually have even seen snow before, let alone know how to drive in it or have anything other than a rear wheel drive car? All of those people who don't have what is needed were all over the road, driving badly or creating miles long parking lots in the road impeding the homeward progress of DH and many other people we know. So, we played, the mommies chatted, we dried off snowy children and fed them hot chocolate, chicken nuggets and corn dogs (thank heavens for a recent Costco run!) and wondered if husbands were ever coming home.

To add extra entertainment value to the evening, M fell down (not majorly) and was angry enough at the development that she cried until she coughed and then vomited, ALL over herself and all over me: through my sweater, shirt, underwear down to my skin. Lovely. Thankfully, one mommy friend rode herd on the non-vomiting children, the other mommy friend stripped and bathed M so that I could strip myself and clean off enough of me that I could avoid throwing up too.

Eventually, we found pajamas and sweats for all eleven children and began to try and settle in for a crazy impromptu sleepover. The problem with most sleepovers is that no one actually sleeps. This held true last night. No one had any intentions of sleeping. We sang Christmas carols by the piano, watched the Grinch and other non-Christmas kid DVDs. We tried to calm the children with some limited effect. Finally DH arrived and we tried to push cars, with no luck. So, instead DH drove both families home in the 4WD Explorer we are now grateful not to have gotten rid of yet (it's a battered, well used 97 explorer with many many many miles on it).

And everyone slept in their own beds and even M slept through the night.

Today, we awoke to this:




School was cancelled, so there has been more playing outside and slowly the stuff is all melting. It already seems like some surreal dream. I was so grateful that of late I have resisted my usual urge to postpone grocery/Costco shopping until we are on our last drop of milk/diaper/square of toilet paper. Yes, the day was exhausting and crazy. Yes, I would have liked to have had some reasonably nutritious meal just waiting to be prepared that I could double or triple to feed extras. I would have deeply enjoyed a clean house or at least some semblance of order. But, we had food that would fill our bellies, sufficient numbers of clean pjs and sweats that could be lent out. We had diapers and TP in abundance and milk and cocoa to fill our needs. Perhaps I actually have some "oil" in my proverbial lamp after all. No one was stranded out in the cold wet dark snow. No babies were born prematurely in a stranded Yukon. Everyone was safe and warm.

Maybe it's not such a bad thing (although my ego is feeling it still) that people saw my messy house and the packaged frozen junk I purchase for "occasional" consumption by my extremely picky eaters. I can't imagine that any of our ward members have any delusions about the bishop's family and home being perfect or idyllic in any way (they do attend sacrament meeting with us after all), but it makes me feel okay, bruised pride notwithstanding, that I could open my messy home and provide some measure of refuge, or shelter at least and that eventually we could help them get home with only a few too many chicken nuggets sloshing around in their bellies with too much hot cocoa. It warms my heart to hear throughout today of ward members who drove home stranded neighbors and friends and others who towed endless cars up the crazy hill we live on (DH's brother calls it "the widowmaker") instead of tucking themselves in their well prepared cozy homes and leaving the rest to the elements.

Even though the snow is fast melting, I think it really is looking a lot like Christmas.