home sweet home.

After a very fun and wonderful Christmas break, it feels so good to be settled back here in our apartment in Missouri!  We arrived back here on Wednesday night, but that wasn't our original plan...

Our original plan had been to come back on Sunday, after we attended church at our home church.  (Kaine and Halle's school was scheduled to start on Monday morning, so we wanted to get back in time for that.  Remember this post, where I mentioned we were going to start Halle at public school in January?  So this would be her very first day of school, and we wanted her to be there for that).

Well.  Sometimes God has different plans for us!  This time, He did.  I guess he wanted us to stay in IN for a little longer, and He chose to use the huge snowstorm to keep us there!

So...this was the day that we were supposed to leave.  Ha!  I think leaving this day would have been suicide.

It was actually a very fun day to be snowed in.  As everyone already knows, that was some beautiful snow!  And on Sunday the temperature was perfect for playing outside, and the snow was perfect for packing. Our kids loved it.

That night, since we weren't going to be able to drive to MO, we had made some plans to go to our friends Vince and Brandy's house for the evening.  As we drove out to their house, we wondered if we were crazy!  Here is a picture of the 5:00 traffic that day.  There weren't many other geniuses like us on the roads that night!  Thankfully, we arrived safely at their house, but while we were there it started to get MUCH worse outside.  It looked like our backup plan to leave on Monday morning would be OUT.

Monday morning, God decided to send tremendously cold temperatures on top of all that snow!  Wow.  I didn't step outside that day.  Nathan's dad is so funny though--he is a true Florida man at heart.  Here is Dave, shoveling snow in shorts and flipflops in the -40 degree windchill!  Crazy man!

The good thing is, God dumped a ton of snow on Missouri, too!  So Kaine and Halle's school was cancelled that day, which we were so thankful for.

Monday night, we went to bed thinking there was a hopeful possibility we could leave the next morning.  However, on Tuesday morning, the conditions really hadn't improved.  The roads were absolutely TERRIBLE, because in temperatures that cold, salt does not work.  So the roads were all covered in ice.  We knew if we left on Tuesday morning we would have to drive 30 mph max all the way to MO.  NOT FUN.  So we stayed another day! (again, praising God that Kaine and Halle's school was cancelled on Tuesday, too!)

It was pretty fun to be snowed in at Nathan's parents' house.  What better place to be stranded than a grandparents' house??  Our kids were very content to stay :)

By Tuesday night, we decided that Wednesday would warm up a little and it would be safe to attempt driving home to MO.  We packed up most of the van that night.  God poured more grace on us by allowing Kaine and Halle's school to be cancelled yet again on Wednesday!!  Wow, we didn't expect this.

So, around 8:15 on Wednesday morning, we finally loaded up and prepared for a long drive.  And this time, it was VERY. LONG.

What a trooper my hubby is.  He drove the WHOLE time.  He knows I don't drive nearly as well as he does, especially in stressful driving conditions!

And THIS is how the first leg of our journey was.  See our speed?  TWENTY-THREE miles per hour!  It looked like a long day ahead of us!

Our kids were troopers that day.  They did really well!  They entertained themselves by writing on the ice-covered windows... (it was still super cold outside!)

Grandma Terri sent along bags for each kid with a few treats inside.  One thing she gave them all was vibrating toothbrushes.  They were so excited, as they have begged me for these for years!

It didn't take Daisy long to eat her WHOLE box of tic-tacs.  (don't judge me...it was a LONG drive!)

We saw a LOT of scenes like this...

and this...

and this...

Seriously.  Not exaggerating, I bet we saw at LEAST 80 cars or semis in the ditches.  Yikes!

So.

• A lot of our journey was very slow because we were driving on solid ice.
• There were tons of back-ups because of accidents or tow trucks pulling cars out of ditches.
• We had a mishap at a gas station (we won't go into details, but lets just say it involved me getting caught in a long line of cars and semis exiting a gas station and heading toward the interstate...but Nathan and Daisy were still in the gas station.  And there was no place for me to pull over!!  It may or may not have involved Nathan carrying Daisy out of the gas station and up the road, heading toward the overpass, walking in between semis and other vehicles to try to get to me!  Thankfully, God sent a truck driver to pick them up and drive them the rest of the way.  It is a long story :)  ).  This whole scenario probably added an hour to our day.
• We accidentally went straight through St Louis.  The traffic through that city was horrendous!  I really think it took almost 2 hours to get through.

Our drive is usually 9 hours, but this time is was more like 13.5 hours.  It was a loooong day, but even though I probably made it sound miserable, it really wasn't!  Our kids did really well, and Nathan was a very calm, cool and collected driver.  And really, 13.5 hours wasn't terrible.  It could have been MUCH worse!

We were very glad to see HOME!

And we got home in time to go down and see our new sweet nephew, August!  Isn't he a cutie???

We are so glad to be back in a routine here at home!  We are praising the Lord for His protection and His grace.