Surviving the Polar Vortex

THE POLAR VORTEX!!  It's brutal.  This winter has been relentless.  We have record amounts of snow and record low temperatures, and when I say record low temperatures I'm talking 50 degrees below zero.

The Chicago area got hit with the polar vortex right as the kids were supposed to return to school after winter break.  The air temperatures were -15 and with wind chill it was -50.  Way too cold to go outside, I mean you could literally get frostbite within minutes.  We also got a little snow along with the cold temperatures which pretty much iced the roads.  School was cancelled for two days and we basically just hunkered down in our warm house.

The day before the actual polar vortex hit, was Sunday and we got so much snow that church was cancelled.  Paige helped Dave shovel, but it was hard work.  When I opened to door to check on them, Paige had been reduced to shoveling while sitting down.

This was day one of being frozen/snowed in.  By the next day we were frozen, even Dave's company advised it's employees to work from home.  I was so grateful for a working heater and pipes that didn't freeze.

So what did we do?  Well, we got to sleep in!  We watched tv, movies, and read some books.  I also had everyone work on a family project, tying fleece blankets.

We made blankets for each of the girls and a baby blanket for Debby.  These sure have been handy this winter considering how cold it's been.

We also ate lots of comfort food, including Thai Sukiyaki.  I even made my own sauce from scratch, it was yummy and I've found another use for my fondue pot.

It was so cold Ashley wanted to do an experiment that everyone was doing which was to throw boiling water outside and watch it freeze/vaporize in mid-air.  I told her she could do it.  So she boiled the water in a pan, opened the door and threw the water into the air and right back onto herself, earning a pretty good burn on her arm.  Honestly, I didn't even think about safety, I figured she was old enough to throw hot water out of a pan, but obviously not.  Anyway, she had a pretty good blister on her forearm for a few days, but she is okay now.

One of the things Paige did to keep busy was to make us all lots of rainbow loom bands.

Fortunately, before we went too crazy with cabin fever, it warmed up to -10 wind chills which was downright balmy and good enough to return to school.

Bundled up and ready to step outside and catch the school bus

I wish that I could say these few days were the end of our harsh winter, but honestly it was more like the beginning.  We have had several snow storms since then and many days of harsh, subzero temperatures.  Two more days of school were cancelled and the forecast is still pretty grim if you're hoping for spring.  Just this past week we got about 10 more inches of snow and the temperatures were -32 wind chills this morning and we aren't even canceling school anymore.  We just get calls warning us about poor road conditions and late running buses.

It's good times around here.  Everyone is officially done with winter.  Here is some of the commentary about winter this year:

"die winter, die"
"this is reverse hell"
"Chiberia"
"definitely buying a snowblower next year"
"time to hibernate"