The forecast yesterday was supposed to consist of light rain turning to light snow in the late afternoon. Around 3 pm as I headed to a meeting I noticed that it was drizzling outside and threatening to turn to snow. “Wow weather guys… nice call for once” was the thought that went through my head as I walked to my meeting. Around 5:30 as I headed out to begin the drive home there was just a light dusting of snow on the Jeep and I figured it would be a uneventful commute. I was incorrect in that assumption.

As I reached the 1/4 point of my commute the traffic slowed to a crawl on the freeway and my phone rang. Emily was on the other end and let me know that the freeway was closed at the point of the mountain. As I looked out my window, I figured that there had to be an accident or something because the weather wasn’t all that bad. But I was also informed that my father-in-law was stuck in Alpine so I thought I’d maybe try to meet him there and we could grab some dinner as we waited for the roads to open up. I got off the freeway in Lehi and started through the neighborhoods heading towards Alpine when all of the sudden I was transported to Siberia. I found myself in total white-out conditions with visibility of about 10 ft. I could barely see the taillights of the Tahoe in front of me. We weaved our way down totally snow-blown streets with more cars than I could count stuck on the sides of the roads. One car parked on the wind side of a street was almost completely overblown. Had the emergency flashers not still been on I would have guessed it had been parked there for days.

As I slowly made my way towards Alpine I started wondering if I was going to maybe have to sleep in my Jeep in a parking lot. I passed a couple gas stations whose parking lots were totally overflowing with cars as people tried to wait out the storm. At this point it was nearing 8:30 so I found a church parking lot to pull into and quickly ran into the building to relieve the pressure that had been building over the past couple hours. Once that was done I went back out to throw the chains on the Jeep to see if I could still push my way through to Alpine. I quickly found that all roads to Alpine were blocked as the snow plows tried to push their way through. I decided to head back to Lehi to try to find my brother-in-law instead. Long story short, I found Adam in Lehi and then made it back to Alpine using the “back way” through American Fork. I found Paul frozen solid at the Kruger in Alpine and once everyone was piled into the Jeep we made our way back down to Lehi to buy dry clothes for Paul and Mike because they had been trying to help get everyone unstuck so that the school bus full of kids (keep in mind that these kids have been stuck on this bus since school let out at 4:30) could make it’s way back to the school. It was pure insanity.

After we got new clothes and some food we spent the next couple hours slowly making our way north on the freeway. Once we got past the point of the mountain things cleared up and we eventually made it home around 1:30 am after having rescued one more stranded driver trying to make it home in his Mustang GT. That much horsepower and rear wheel drive had combined to ensure that he wasn’t going anywhere (I love my Jeep).

The pictures below don’t really do it justice, but on the south side of the point of the mountain, it was truly some of the worst weather I’ve ever driven in. It made me feel like I was on an expedition to the south pole or something. Needless to say, I didn’t end up going into work today.

For her last birthday Mallory received a My Little Pony castle thingy (it looks like a big teapot that opens up).  She loves to play with it and often times spends hours on her own thinking up adventures for her little pony friends.  Well, apparently Annie likes ponies too.  Mallory was playing with her ponies on the couch the other day and Annie was more than happy to join in.  She mostly just wanted to eat the ponies, but Mallory was glad to have someone to play with.  And seeing as how most of Mallory’s pony adventures revolve around one of the ponies getting into some life threatening situation (like being dangled over the edge of the couch by a shoe string) and then being rescued, having to be rescued from the giant pony eating baby fits right in with her usual story lines.  Silly Girls.

In an effort to get the twins to sleep a little better at night, Emily has started giving them cereal at bedtime. Annie still isn’t quite sure what to think about this new method of eating, but Jack loves it. As far as he’s concerned, Mom can’t shovel the runny gray goo into his mouth fast enough. And we thought he was a messy eater before…

Yesterday I got Hailey on the bus and told Mallory that we needed to get the babies ready so that we could go vote. She is my little home body and did not want to go. I kept prodding her along but she was dragging her feet. I kept telling her to hurry and finally she said “What is voting?” I told her it was when we go and tell who we want to be the president.  That made her so excited and she got ready very fast.  She even let me do her hair (which is a miracle for a girl who daily gets threatened that I will give her a hair cut like daddy’s). We fed the babies and packed their bag and we were off.  We had to drop something off at a neighbors house which made her mad.  She just wanted to go vote. 

So we got to the school and I let her help me vote.  She didn’t seem very excited.  I said “Okay, we did it. Let’s go.” She stopped walking and said but we didn’t see him.  I asked her who and she said “Presently Hinckley” (that is what she calls him).  It made me so sad.  I wished we were going to see  him too.  I told her we voted for the President of the United States not the President of the church.  She was very very disappointed.

This funny story reminds me of another Mallory misunderstanding this week.  I was playing with Jack and telling him all the nursery rhymes with Jack in them.  Mallory asked me why they wrote all those stories about him.  I said they aren’t about our Jack  just people with the same name.  Like Peter, Peter Pumpkin Eater has the same name as Nolan’s dad, who is also our Bishop.  ”Oh”, she said “and like Peter Pan.”  So a few days later she was telling me about a game. I  told her I didn’t know that game.  She said that it’s a game that  Nolan, Sam and Bishop Peter Pan have. 

I must not explain things very well because when Hailey was little she was going crazy and I told her she needed to have more patience.  She said, ” Mom I’m not a doctor!”

The last week or so has been rather snowy as we’ve been hit by the remnants of the storm that left some flooding in its wake down in California. We were told to prepare for the storm of the decade, but it really wasn’t all that bad. It was however, bad enough to get church canceled on Sunday (which is pretty bad for Utah). I think part of the cancellation was due to the fact that our building is on the edge of a huge field which lies directly in the path of the winds that blow up from the point of the mountain. Between the loads of light fluffy snow that fell and the crazy winds that blew all night long, I’m pretty sure our building was basically buried under a gigantic snow drift. As you can see from the pictures below, we got quite a bit of snow at our place as well. The front edge of our retaining wall is about level with the snow after the wind was done with it.

As I sat watching the snow come down Sunday morning it got me to thinking a little about the events of this past week. With winds and snow that made leaving the house a pretty unappealing prospect, the nasty Sunday weather made the previous day all the more special. In stark contrast to what I watched out the window, I thought of how just one day prior had seen the sun shine down brightly on Salt Lake City Cemetary. The nasty winds that howled outside had held their breath the day before in reverence and respect as one of the worlds truly great men was laid to rest. I’m sure that it wasn’t just a coincidence that the weather was nearly perfect on Saturday, but it’s little things like that which help to confirm that our Heavenly Father looks down on us from above. As half the valley turned out for President Hinkley’s funeral, the Lord knew that nothing but a pleasantly sunny day would do for the funeral of one of the happiest souls ever to grace this beautiful earth. It was like the whole world took a deep breath to honor one man. A father. A friend. A prophet of God.

And on Sunday the world exhaled… and it snowed.