Snow, Snow, Snow

We have had quite the eventful weekend. Our planned weekend consisted of traveling to Indianapolis to visit with my grandma (mom's mom) and our nephew Mason. It had been really cold and pretty windy and we've had a mix of rain and snow off and on for a couple of weeks now. Friday was no different. On our way down to Indy, the roads were not too bad until we got right out of Fort Wayne it began to rain a bit, no big deal. Then about forty-five minutes outside of Fort Wayne in Gas City, it began to snow. It was really wet snow and by the time it reached the street, it melted. We traveled another few miles and the snow began to stick to the road and really started to accumulate. Traffic became slower and slower as did we. All of a sudden, we come across a snowplow and everyone slams on their brakes, as do we. Bad news...we slide from the left lane to the right lane back to the left lane and back to the right lane. We looked like a fish out of water. As I am holding my breath and glancing back at Landon and Lily, who by the way is shaking and not because she just got out of a bath, and as I turn back around, we are sliding into a ditch off of the right side of the road. We slide down into the ditch and proceed to slide as Chris tries to get us back up onto 69 South. We travel about 100 yards with our front tires turned as far as they will go and...nothing. We just can't get up out of the ditch. We dodge a few speed limit signs that are down in the ditch with us. We watch as several cars pass as well as a snowplow that just plowed snow right onto our car as we are helplessly trying to get out of the pickle we are in. Chris is trying his hardest, rocking the car back and forth, to get us back onto the road;....nothing. I am worried that once we do get back up onto the road that with the gas peddle all the way to the floorboard, that we might make it up onto 69 again, but right into the flow of traffic. Chris gives the car gas one more time, easing the car up on the hill....a little more...a little more....and finally, we make it onto the shoulder of 69 south. We look at each other in complete shock that we made it out of the ditch without calling a tow truck and everyone safe and un-injured. We were speechless. We take a look back at Landon, and he is just sitting in his carseat, clueless of what had just happened. We breath a few times and calm back down and slowly start back down to Indy. We get the car going and at about 50 miles an hour, the car is shaking so bad that Chris' hands are shaking on the steering wheel and Landon's little legs are wobbling. All of a sudden, we hear a little voice saying, "ahhhhh" with a little quiver from the car shaking. Chris and I look at each other and start laughing. The scariest thing had just happened and sweet little Landon is having the best time making his voice quiver with the shaking of the car. What could we do but laugh and praise God that we were all alright. So, to conclude our adventure, we finally got to Indy, made a couple errands and got a rental car. We took his car into the shop on Saturday and they called Monday morning with the diagnoses. Both the front and back right tire rims are bent and the alignment is "shot"...in really bad shape. The blessing of all of this is that we don't have to pay the $860.00 that it's going to cost to fix the car because we decided to take Chris company car to Indianapolis and not mine. Chris' company pays for EVERYTHING in regards to his car. Thank God. The other blessing...we were all alright and things could've been much worse. Oh...but to add to the story, we spent our weekend in Indianapolis and were going to wait around for the car to get fixed but decided that since it wouldn't be until Wednesday to fix his car, we would go ahead and head back up to Fort Wayne, since we had the rental, because Chris needed to work. We drive back up to Fort Wayne on Monday and we get to about Gas City, and Chris gets this look on his face of concern. I asked him what was wrong and he continued to remind me that we have no way of getting into the house because the garage door opener is in his car, which is Indianapolis being repaired, along with his car keys which include our house key. My house key was...well...in the house. We decide that since we were only 45 minutes from home, we might as well keep going and see if there is anyway to get into the house. Our neighbor was out and tried to help Chris get into the back sliding glass door. A side note, our backyard is on a busy street with much traffic. While Chris and Jim are trying to get the door open, two police officers are driving on the road behind our house and see two men braking into a house. They pull into the neighborhood to see whats going on to realize that we lived here. They had to check Chris and Jim's I.D. to make sure and then told us they couldn't help us. So...to make a long story longer and $83.00 later, we had to call a lock-smith to get into our house. Yikes!!!! We are home, we are safe and we just got the most beautiful snow Monday night. I'm just glad that we don't really have to go anywhere and Chris is working in town today. Sorry this is so long, but a little update on Landon. He had a check-up last Monday and he weighs 26.4 lbs (75% for his age group) and is about 33 inches in height (92% for his age group). He just keeps growing, but is very healthy. He is 15 months and his doctor said that he is at about 18 months developmentally for his vocabulary. We are very proud and honored to be raising such a fun little guy. Here are some pictures of our beautiful snow:)