Snowed in

This past weekend I was so excited to go back home.  I haven't been there since Christmas...I know that might not seem like a long time, but for me...that's a long time to go without seeing my family.  I feel like I got to do everything all in one weekend trip.  I went to my best friend's bridal shower, went to dinner with my parents, sister-in-law and beautiful niece, and then saw lots of family on my mom's side of the family :)

The only down side is that when I do weekend trips home during the school year, I don't get anything done at my home.  At home, Saturday is my laundry day/grocery shopping and Sunday is my cleaning day.  I reserve the week nights (and weekends too) to spend with my girls and Jason.  I was especially nervous about being away last weekend because we are trying to prepare for Kaitlyn's birthday party this weekend and I knew it would be a little stressful trying to get everything done during the week.
Enter perfectly timed winter storm.  I had to go to the grocery store on Monday after school because I wasn't here on my normal shopping day.  People tend to freak out a little when there is a threat of a dangerous winter storm.  Everything I normally get at the store had been pretty much wiped out.  I felt like I was the last one on Earth to prepare but I managed to get everything I needed to survive in the worst case scenario.
An ice storm came through on Monday and Tuesday leaving our city paralyzed.  Our school district was closed down on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday.  On the one hand, I was able to get everything done that I had missed while I was away for the weekend since we were iced in for a few days.  However, our driveway is another battle we have to tackle.
Jason and I went out and chipped away at it for about an hour and got this far on only one side of the driveway:  Day 1

That is solid ice.  Solid stinking ice.  Jason's car got stuck at the bottom and the only way to get down there without falling was to slide down on our butts.  Once we got down there, we couldn't get back up.  Jason tried four times to walk up and just slid back down.  We had to make foot holes in the snow bank along the side of the driveway to walk up.  I went to four different stores today to try to find salt.  I guess I should have bought the salt before the storm hit.  I was so busy trying to stay alive inside during the storm, I didn't think about getting outside after it was all over!
We went back out and after lots of fast acting salt, a sledge hammer, and a shovel we got a little further: (Day 2)

I think everyone around here is going stir crazy.  I took the girls to McDonalds yesterday afternoon since we had been in the house without leaving since Monday evening.  We went to the closest one with a playground so the girls could run around and get some energy out.  I'm pretty sure that everyone in our city had the exact same idea.  It was bananas.  At least the girls had lots of kids to play with!