Snowy Vermont February, 2008

This past Saturday our family made an unexpected trip to Vermont to see about the damage done to our cabin by a burglar. We were worried about Cecelia in the car as it is a 5 hour ride, but she was fantastic! The trip was uneventful until we got to our cabin...and the 6 feet of snow piled at the end of the driveway! We drove down to the nearest country store to get a newspaper in order to find a snowplower...called a few numbers and no luck...next we went into several other stores to see if they knew of someone...still no luck, and so resigning ourselves to the fact that we would somehow be chipping out that snow by hand, we started driving up the hill to where our house is...as life would have it, on the way up we saw a plow sitting in a neighbor's driveway and stopped to ask???...and YES, he would plow for us...well, it wasn't really plowing, more like chipping snow...and the snowplow driver got stuck! finally they were able to dig out just enough of an area for our van, with a little extra space at the end...ahhh, Vermont in the winter!

The drama doesn't end there...when we got in the house we found that our gas tank was no longer hooked up...the gas company had gone out of business!!! Since we get gas only about every three years, they sent the notice to the house in Vt., and we don't have any forward from there...soooo...another trip to a bigger town to buy a heater until we could get a new gas company...finally we were settled, albeit a little cold for a night...

We had some company in Vt this week...John's brother (who is married to my aunt - follow that?), came to stay for one night...they found themselves in the midst of all the plowing, shoveling, freezing, walk through snow to your hips to get to the front door, no gas, go to the store, buy a heater ordeal...thanks for the help guys! They are also the proud new parents of a little girl they adopted domestically in January...so Cecelia and Juleigh, two little cousins, got to meet and play for the first time!

Our oldest son, Jonathan, also came for a night...he found himself on the warm, already dugout end of the bargain...but I do need to note, got his car stuck at the end of the driveway at 2 in the morning when he arrived!

The rest of the week in Vt was uneventful, relaxing, cozy, and just plain nice. Cecelia acted as though she had always been there and was as happy as could be...

By the way, the burglar must have been as hard up as they come...he dumped a cabinet of kids' games, a few draws of cards, and stole the refrigerator!...a 20 year old, under-the-counter model that I had used for years in my classroom!

next post...Cecelia's birthday!