Adventures in Driving

With a New Year, comes new adventures. That's what Brian and I learned the past few days.

On New Year's Eve, we had a few friends over, just three other couples. We didn't want anything crazy, just a gathering of a few friends with no drama or drunkenness. So, we invited H & D (who brought their two crazy cute kids), J & C (who just moved into a new home), and C & K (who are expecting their second child in about 6 weeks). I made two batches of venison chili, using the bounty of Brian's hunting expeditions this year. Everyone else brought goodies and snacks. The girls chatted all evening and the boys watched a hockey game and played guitar hero.

At about 11 p.m., C & K left to go home, as K was exhausted and they had to get up with their daughter. The snow had just begun. Well, the remaining 6 of us opened a bottle of champagne and toasted the New Year. At about 2 a.m., J & C decided it was time to go home. So, we all say our good-byes, and they leave. H and I go upstairs to put on our pj's, and the boys contemplate cooking some pizza rolls. All of a sudden, I hear Brian call to me, "Heather, your phone's ringing." I come downstairs, and he had picked it up, because it was C, who had just left the house.

J & C ran into a little difficultly leaving our home. Our driveway runs along the side of a hill, into our side load garage. By the time they left, the snow was falling intensely. Instead of backing out of the driveway, J decided to turn around and pull out, because he was afraid of hitting our mailbox going backward. Well, when he turned around, he went slightly off the edge of the driveway. He then attempted to back up a little more to gain some traction. That attempt sent our friends sliding down the side of our hill. Brian and D went out to help dig them out. H went out because she is a nurse and wanted to make sure no one was hurt, which they weren't. After an hour of digging and sliding around, J gave up, and came inside (C had given up immediately, content to stay the night and deal with it in the morning). I made the futon up (H & D and the kids were in the spare room), and everyone stayed the night!

So, the next morning, a tow truck was called, and it pulled the car off the side of the hill. By the way, we got more than a foot of snow here--I read it was one of the top 10 snowfalls in this area since record keeping began. Because I got the numerous waffle makers for Christmas (see post regarding my Christmas presents), I decided to open one and make waffles. What a disaster--the iron said the waffle was done, but when I opened up the lid, the middle wasn't done and the outside of the waffles stuck completely to the iron. Yucky mess. C was nice enough to clean it up for me while I switched to pancakes, which turned out nicely. Our house wasn't empty of friends until 1 p.m. Now today I have to catch up on laundry and try to return the final waffle maker!!