The "Not-So-Simple" Life: Blizzards and Waterfalls

It all began on the morning of Tuesday, February 1st. All area schools had been closed during the night before on account of a "Blizzard," and actually on the bottom of the screen where the area closings roll across it said... "Whole Town of Webb City, CLOSED." It was the first Blizzard warning for this area since 1982. I have to be honest, I was a little bit skeptical. I was beginning to believe that "Weather Warnings" were all scams held by Wal*Mart to get people to go on some pretty hefty grocery shopping trips. After all, the Webb City Wal*Mart was packed and was actually completely out of bread and milk by Monday Evening. The Joplin Weather Channel... To believe, or not to believe, that was the question...

Thankfully, I woke up at 8 a.m. to find tons of snow on the ground! Me and my cousin Alyssa ran and got the nearest ruler and shoved it down into the snow!!!! And the results were... 7" of snow Ladies and Gentlemen... at 8 in the morning!!!! Me and Alyssa squeeled with zeal... it sounded much like little girls who were running from their mean cousins who were chasing them disgusting bugs (not that I would know what that sounds like or anything...and no... I'm not bitter). :)

Whelp... The snow just kept coming down and at 9:30 we had 10" and at 11:30 we had over a foot! It just kept coming until eventually we had over 20" of snow! It's official... we are stuck in this house for a long, long while. Luckily... I was the smart one who went to Wal*Mart the night before and bought all the supplies to make Puppy Chow! Whew... once again, Ariel Saves the Day! :)

Mom and Alyssa and I watched the movie Grown-ups (which was stinkin' HILARIOUS) and munched on puppy chow the rest of the day. Dad was in Colorado on a ski trip with his buddies from work, and was planning to fly in on Wednesday night but I-44 from Tulsa was closed down and he had to take a different route home going around 30-35 miles per hour. It ended up taking him about four and a half hours to get to Joplin from Tulsa.

So today is Friday, there is still as much snow on the ground as there was on Tuesday and in fact, even more has been coming down for the last 6 hours. I love snow, it is absolutely beautiful! That was until around noon today when we began to have a waterfall in our basement! Turns out a pipe had broken upstairs under my parents jacuzzi in their bedroom (that's what they get for being spoiled), and had leaked downstairs into our storage room and into Alyssa's bathroom. And this was no small leak, water was GUSHING! That is until my mom called my dad, who called webb city, who called the water people, who finally turned off our water!

While my family was trying to figure out what to do. I took the boy's over to our neighbors house (Chases's house) where they learned how to play wii, watched Toy Story 3, and played with some of Chase's old toys. It was actually quite humorous because when we gave them a box of Chase's old toys, they just stared at it. They didn't know how to play with them. It was full of things like Hot Wheels, Star Wars Action Figures, Dirt Bike Figurine People with their Bikes, OLD OLD transformers and things of that sort. They just stared at it and started asking questions like, "Where are the motors for the cars?" "How come there is no remote control to make the car move?" "Why don't these people talk?" "Where are we supposed to put the batteries in, are the batteries dead?" That is when I began to crack up laughing at the fact that kids now-a-days have no imaginations what-so-ever!

Anyway, back at the house we called Reid's Dad, Kendall, who is a Plummer/Electrician/Miracle Worker. YAY FOR CONNECTIONS! :) And luckily, he came over and has been helping us with our new waterfall! My mom's first words were, "Well... I have always been wanting to redo this downstairs bathroom!" Haha. So now our water is completely shut off. Which I must say is kind of gross considering that means we can't have showers, brush our teeth, or flush the toilets (especially with to little boys running around).

So this has been quite an eventful week in the Dennis Household. I will attach some pictures below for your personal enjoyment!!!! Oh, and don't forget to be thank god tonight for your free-access to water and indoor plumbing!!!!