18 Hours of D.C. Blizzard Bobsledding

Ryan here. After a death-defying trip down a steep, windy, snow-covered road in the mountains of West Virginia a couple weekends ago while deer hunting with my brother (blog post pending), I decided that our car needed new tires. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy staring death in the face, then wetting my pants and praying for mercy as much as the next guy. It just seems less appealing when there's someone else in the car to witness it, that's all. So early last week I bought some new snow tires in anticipation of our winter travels.

So the Christmas travel plan was to leave school at 4 pm on Friday and drive 5 hrs to my brother, Farel's, house in West Virginia, stay the night, then drive the second 5 hrs to Erin's parent's house in Virginia the next morning. At 9 am on Friday, however, Erin called to inform me that there was a severe snowstorm warning issued for all of West Virginia, Virginia, Maryland, etc, starting Friday night. After considering our options, we decided to make a mad dash for Virginia asap by going east to D.C., then south to Chesapeake, VA. We knew we'd hit snow before we arrived but Erin's parents have a friend that lives just off the highway in D.C. so we figured that, worst case scenario, we could stop and stay with her until the storm blew over, then continue on to the in-law's once the roads were scraped.

A co-resident took my last patient (thanks!) so we were able to leave Columbus at 3 pm on Friday. All was well until we were just outside of D.C. and it started snowing. Then it started SNOWING. The snow started sticking quite a bit and things were getting pretty slick. Then the car in front of us started doing uncontrolled cookies. As I puzzled over the fact that I was face-to-face with the driver of the car in front of me, my brain said to me, "Ryan, if the car in front of you can do cookies on the highway, then the cars beside and behind you probably can, too. And if those cars can, then you probably can, too", which would have been sweet except that I had my wife and kids in the car with me. At that point we decided to stop for gas and re-assess our situation.

We made our way up a slippery and snow-choked off-ramp and pulled into a gas station surrounded by cars that were spinning their tires trying to get up this tiny incline in the road, i.e. the road was extremely slick and no one else had been deer hunting in West Virginia a couple weekends before. With 8 inches of snow on the ground and more falling by the minute, we decided that it might be best to stop and stay with the friend, since she lived just off an exit that was only a couple miles up the freeway. As we took the on-ramp back onto the freeway, we noticed that the off-ramp we had just taken was backed up as far as we could see, due to accidents and general slickness.

As we approached the friend's off-ramp we quickly realized that it, too, was totally choked off with accidents and had about a quarter mile of cars, trucks, and semis lined up to get off. So that limited our options to 1) keep going on the highway or 2) stop on the highway and get rear-ended by the semi behind us that can't stop in time. We chose option 1 and kept going. It was kind of weird because the highway was totally covered in snow so people were just making up their own lanes depending on where the snow seemed easiest to drive through. This resulted in a three lane highway becoming a 4-5 lane highway, with the lanes periodically merging together with no ability for anyone to slow down very well, much less stop. For several hours I was driving in a "lane" that was straddling the noise-maker strip that is normally outside the yellow line on the side of the highway. There were cars, trucks, SUV's, semis, and even a school bus that had slid off the highway and were embedded in the snow banks on the side of the road. It was sad to see people slid off the road, talking on their cell phones, and not being able to stop to help because there was nowhere to stop and your odds of getting hit if you did stop were right around 100%. So we just kept going, praying the whole while. The kids were, gratefully, asleep in their car seats almost the whole time.

With all the accidents, we were at a near stand-still from about 1:45 am until about 3:00 am. We decided at that point to pull off the highway at the nearest hotel and get some sleep, even if we'd be snowed in for a couple days because we were both exhausted. However, every off-ramp we came to looked much like the last: choked with accidents and lots of people lined up at a stand-still to get off. So we just kept going. At one point, traffic stopped so I got out and knocked the ice blocks off the windshield wipers so that they'd touch the glass and wipe away the snow again (which was an adventure all it's own). I figured I'd take advantage of being out of the car so I stood in the doorway of our car and went pee, as discretely as one can while trying not to slip on the ice or get frostbite. The snow and wind blowing into the car woke up our 2 1/2 year old, Grant, and he yelled, "Daddy! Don't go pee pee on the car door! That's a no-no!" Then he laid down his head and fell back asleep.

Eventually we avoided all the accidents and drove the last 200 miles at about 20 mph with a blizzard blowing around us. To stay awake, I was listening to the book Outliers on CD. Eventually I had to switch to Angels & Demons because Outliers got to the part in the book where it talks about terrible airplane crashes and why they happen: tired, over-worked pilots; stormy weather conditions; lack of communication in the cockpit; etc. It went into excrutiating detail about how each of these things, alone, wouldn't be enough to cause a plane to crash but all added up they were a very deadly combo. As I listened, it was like the narrator was in the back seat describing our exact conditions to me. SCARY! We drove all night and arrived at Erin's parent's house at 9 am on Saturday, 18 hours after starting our 10 hour drive. Regrettably, we didn't take any photos of our bobsled trip down the D.C./Virginia highway system. Funny enough, it didn't really occur to me at the time to do so. It's too bad. Here's a photo from the paper, though. I think this was from New Jersey but there was WAY more snow than this were we were. The article says D.C got 16 inches and that Virginia reported over 3000 car accidents on Friday and Saturday.


Things we learned from this experience:

1) Postpone a trip rather than risk driving through a major storm. Spending time with family is awesome but risking lives to make that happen is not wise.

2) Don't be too upset when things don't go as planned. I was mad and scared when my car was sliding all over that West Virginia hillside but that annoying, eye opening experience potentially saved that lives of me and/or my family b/c it helped me see that I needed new tires for the car. I am positive that we would not have made it safely if we had driven with the old tires on. In other words, realize that some of life's greatest blessings come cleverly disguised as annoying inconveniences or even as terrible tragedies.

3) Always keep food, water, and blankets in your car or truck. I heard later that some of those people were stranded in their cars for 13 hours or more.

4) Don't go pee pee on the car door. That's a no-no!

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year to you all and please travel safely!!!

Let the fun begin!

This is a couple weeks late, but better late than never.

Family and Food

About a month ago our friend, Kellie, took some awesome family pictures for us. You can check out her blog here which also has links to her website. She does such a good job, I love her eye for detail. Here are some of my favorites.

On a different note, if you haven't noticed already there is a link on the right to a food blog my sister Christine and I started. Anyone who knows the Nickerson women know that we love to bake so we thought we'd start this blog just for fun. Check it out if your looking for something to bake, and we'll try to keep it updated on a regular basis.

Cereal, anyone?

Every time I read someone's blog about how they bought $50 worth of food for $2 I'm always pretty impressed by their mad bargain-finding skills. I mean, that takes a lot of work, time and planning to get all your coupons, match them with the store's sales, get there, etc., etc.

For the past couple of years I've been a partially committed couponer. Some weeks I'm planning menu's, cutting coupons, searching blogs for deals, the whole nine yards. But it seems more often than not all the effort is in vain when I'm at the store trying to sort through coupons while simultaneously wrestling a two year old who's shoving gummy dinosaurs in the cart and also attemping to feed the baby a continuous supply of Cheerios to keep him from screaming. (deep breath) So basically, I usually end up choosing sanity over saving a few dollars in the check out line.

However, I do continue to keep my eye out for deals and I feel that I finally have one that I should record for future posteriety to know that I too put forth the effort to find a great deal (at least every now and again). Kroger had a one day sale of 50% off Kelloggs and other brands cereal and crackers, and along with many coupons I got all the above items for $24. Averages out to around $1 per item, not bad I'd have to say. I'm just glad I won't have to cut cereal coupons for awhile.

Happy Halloween!

This post is mainly a photo dump for all things Halloween. These first two were taken by Kellie at our ward Halloween party. She does such a good job.

We could not get Tate to look at the camera, he just wanted to get that pumpkin.

Here are some of the pictures from Halloween night (trick-or-treating was scheduled for Thursday night here). The skunk costume got pulled out of the closet for Tate and Grant wanted to wear last year's fireman suit again. We did add a pair of fire boots (galoshes) this year so it was a little different. Probably the cutest skunk and fireman I've seen in a good while :)

We had our own little Halloween party on Wednesday night. Well, we just had dinner with a spooky twist. What do you think about the mummy dogs and spider web bean dip? Alright, I know the mummy dog looks more like a guy in a turban (thanks Christine). Just so you know I got these ideas off of my favorite food blog, ourbestbites.

Gotta have caramel apples, yummy!

Last but not least, the parent's costume. Ryan and I got invited to a fun costume party and went as a Harlem Globetrotter and his wife. So we went to the thrift store a while back to see what we could find for a costume. Ryan came across the dress I am wearing and we decided we had to have it (can you imagine someone owned that, for real?!) We found Ryan's jersey and shorts in the kids section there and added the accessories. I'd have to say it was one of our better costumes.

What entertains a 2 year old?

Grant goes through stages of different things that entertain him. Lately, if I need a good 15 Grant-free minutes I just give him some cups and water bottles to fill and pull his stepping stool right up to the kitchen sink. He loves to fill them up and empty into different containers. (Oh, and I usually don't let him do this with a steak knife in grabbing range).

Grant also enjoys dressing up, although he usually dons his fireman hat and coat or some of Ryan's shoes. I think this picture is probably one of those that Grant will want to burn when he's a teenager, but for now, it's funny and made it to the blog. This is the only time I've seen him do this though.

The other day he was playing in the garage and came in saying "Mommy, can you help me put these on". I don't even know where we keep these things but he found them, so he got to wear Ryan's old water shoes and work gloves for the afternoon.

Some of Grant's entertainment activities end up being better than others. Last week I was upstairs checking my emails. Tate was down for his morning nap and I knew Grant was just playing nicely by himself downstairs. Well actually I knew it was quiet down there so I should probably go see what he was doing, but I just had one more email to check... Ten minutes later I go down to find Grant had tossed the majority of the downstairs toys down to the basement and was starting to work on adding the couch cushions. At least the living room looked clean and orderly with no toys on the floor :)

Fall Fun

Ahh Fall, who doesn't love it? We have been taking advantage of the beautiful fall weather (well, I guess until this crazy, windy cold front came blowing in) and getting out to see what Ohio's harvest has to offer. The boys and I were able to go apple and raspberry picking one morning, both of which I have never done before. It was a lot of fun! Grant had a ball, especially with the raspberry picking once I showed him how he could taste the berries he picked. That was probably not the best idea since he proceeded to eat the berries straight from the bush until I dragged him to the car. That boy can eat.

A couple weekends ago Ryan and I took the kiddies to a local farm that puts on fun activites for the weekend. It was like a mini farm amuesment park. They had hay rides, a corn maze, zip-lines, farm animals, huge hay lofts to play in complete with slides and jumps, 4-wheeler type bike racing, and much, much more (maybe they should pay me for this).

By far Grant's favorite attraction was the humongous corn box. It's like a typical sand box but instead of sand, there's corn, and instead of a box, there's A BARN. So basically, it was a big barn filled 8 inches deep with corn kernels to play in! There were lots of large Tonka trucks and cars to play with as well, which only sweetened the deal. We spent almost an hour there and still Grant was not ready to move on. Plus, it was simple to clean the corn off when he was done, in contrast to sand, which would have chafed him for the rest of the day (and would have chafed me, figuratively speaking, when it showed up in the carpet at home). Yes, we are now considering having a corn box of our own some day.

Grant was very proud of the sticker he was issued on admission to the farm. He walked up to the goats and said "Hi goats, you wanna see my sticker?" I think they would have appreciated a little lick of it at least.

What's a fun-filled farm without plywood animal cutouts? Grant preferred to ride the stone pig and eat his apple. Tate sure makes a cute horse though!

I Can Can

Okay, I'm at least learning how to can. For awhile now I've been wanting to get all the supplies together and just try it out, learn something new. It's actually easier than I thought it would be, especially if you have someone to help you with the prep. I decided to start with peaches and picked these babies up from a local farmer's market. I only bought 10 pounds of peaches, anymore than that and I might have ended up just shoving whole peaches into the jars and calling it good. We ended up with 6 quarts of peaches. As you can see from the picture, we learned one of our first major lessons with canning--the fruit shrinks when processing so pack those suckers tight.

The most tedious part of canning is the fruit prep. We tried blanching the peaches first to help remove the skins which was only somewhat effective for us. I think we need more practice with that. It also made them pretty slick which made the slicing more intersting. I did mangage to keep all my fingers intact though, so I call it a success.

Ryan is still very busy and was supposed to be spending his time on his school work but ended up helping me with the entire process. It was awesome and cut the time in half. Thanks honey!

And now, the taste test. They turned out great! We all thought they tasted better than any store-bought canned peaches we've tried, altough we could be slightly biased We enjoyed them on waffles this past Sunday morning.

Canning the peaches went smoothly enough that I decided to try again, and this time with no help (a certain BYU game was on). The kids and I went apple picking (more about that in the next post) so I decided to go with apple pie filling. Who will eat that much apple pie filling you might ask? I have asked myself the same question, but I thought it was a waste to make applesauce since it takes a lot of work and I can buy it so cheaply at the store. So apple pie filling it is. Also, I still have several pounds of apples left so I may attempt apple butter next. Anyone have a good recipe?

A Hearty Har Har

This is among the heartiest we've seen Tate laugh. Who knew a pig in mom's mouth could be so funny?

Five firsts in one week

First #1: Tate has figured out how to crawl.
For about the past month, Tate has been in a pre-crawling state, up on his hands and knees--moving backward or just rocking back and forth. This past week he has discovered forward motion and every day he become a quicker and more efficient crawler. This is nice because he is much more content now that he can better satisfy his curiosity and this is not so nice now that I have to be extra vigilant about keeping the floor clean and baby-proofed. He can find any random piece of paper, small toy or otherwise chockable item quicker than I can pick them all up, he's a sly one.

First #2: Tate can sit unsupported.
Right about the same time he started crawling, he began putting himself in the sitting position and remaining stable. Before this time, I would always put a pillow around him while he was sitting up because he would inevitably fall backward and hit his head. He still has had a fall or two this past week but otherwise will remain sitting until he sees something else he wants to play with and crawls away.
First #3: Tate wants to pull himself up on everything.
Okay, I was pretty excited about the previous two firsts. He can crawl around, sit up and play which keeps him entertained for much longer than ever before. The pulling up on things would not be a problem except that he is still quite unstable on his feet (as you can see in the picture he looks like he's in the process of falling). I'm not ready for this stage where you have to follow them around the house, ready to catch them from a head-banging fall at any moment. Right now I try to keep an eye on him and redirect his attention to toys on the floor, etc, or just stick pillows in positions that will hopefully catch his head when he comes crashing to the floor.

First #4: Grant has a big-boy bed.
Sorry no picture yet. I'm planning on posting one after I get the cute bedding I've been looking at. We actually got bunk beds that convert to two twin beds. We set the top bunk with the side railing up for his bed so I think Grant thinks it's just a big crib. He hasn't even tried to crawl out (although he easily could) but I'm not complaining as he stays in his bed for naptime.

First #5: Tate is finally in the crib.
That's right. After 6 months of life Tate can say goodbye to the hard, uneven boards of the pack-n-play and say hello to the soft, comfortable mattress in the crib. He is even starting to sleep better. The past couple of nights he has not awaken to eat until 5 am (he usually wakes around 3 or 4am) and then went back to sleep until 8 am. I'm hoping the trend will continue until he's just sleeping right through the night. I guess we will see...

This picture is not a first but I figured I needed a picture of Grant on here as well as Tate. One night we were going to say our prayers and Grant insisted that George kneel down to pray as well. They both made it through the whole prayer :)

Happy Anniversary!

This is actually a few days late, but better late than never! We celebrated our 5th anniversary on the 19th and got a night out on the town the weekend before (thanks Scott and Carol for babysitting!). This year was my turn to pick what we were going to do so I decided we should hit up German Village in Columbus and try out Schmidt's Sausage Haus. I'm not one to gravitate toward German food (and especially not sausage) but I saw a clip about this place on the Food Network so I thought we'd give it a try.

Here's Ryan with our spread and a fork-full of knackwurst and sauerkraut. Ryan got the all-you-can eat sausage buffet which had all their famous sausages and brats along with German and American side dishes. I decided to get ethnic and got the Weiner-schnitzel with spatzel and german pancakes. And the verdict: mine was better. Americans don't eat many sour foods and that was the predominant flavor in the food we got. They even gave me a lemon to squeeze over my dish which I thought made it more delicious.
Here's a lovely shot of me stuffing my face with weiner-schnitzel. Yum! (Come to find out, weiner-schnitzel is not a sausage, like you might think. It's veal cutlets, battered and fried. Who knew?!)

Ryan was really into the first couple of sausages, but then the sauerkraut and fat started to get to him. This pic shows the sudden wave of nausea that hit him at about brat #4 (don't worry, the nausea didn't last too long:). He said most of his food ended up tasting like you would except buffet food to taste.
So that was a little dissapointing but it was a lot of fun to go and experience it all.
Afterward, we went to a bookstore in town that they had made out of one of the historic buildings. The whole store was several levels that had been made into 32 rooms of books. The rooms were pretty small and all connected by narrow hallways and staircases. You had to weave through the maze of rooms, hallways, and staircases to get through the place. There were people on their cell phones trying to find other people in the maze-store, with references to landmarks like "I just went up the double-staircase by the pirate books and am now in the room with horse books and car books. Where are you?" It was a pretty fun set up. And Ryan and I love meandering through book stores so we had a blast.
Thanks honey for being such a wonderful husband. You've made these past 5 years incredible. I love you!

Tate eats solids, sort of

Tate is now six months so we decided it was high time for him to try the deliciousness that is rice cereal. There are actually two parts of this video, at the beginning of his feeding and near the end. Hopefully tomorrow he will take more than three bites before gagging.

He's quite a singer

Grant felt like singing one evening so we kept giving him requests. We didn't even know he knew this whole song, I guess playing the Primary music CD helps.

What we've been up to...

Amidst Ryan's school and continuing to organize the house we have been keeping ourselves pretty busy around these parts. Here are some of the things we've been up to:

Tate got a new exersaucer (go Craigslist!) that can buy me about 5 minutes of entertainment time a few times a day. Hey, sometimes 5 minutes is all you need.

For the 4th of July we went to a BBQ with some of the orthodontic department. I decided to pull out the apron and make some festive cupcakes. That helped satisfy my need to bake for about a week (I tell you, I have issues).

Grant loved the BBQ because they had games and tons of snacks and prizes for the kiddies. He won this lovely giraffe hat as well as a spiderman backpack and coloring book.

This giraffe hat has been quite popular in our house and makes for some cute pictures.

In the meantime, Tate turned 5 months old and has been getting cuter by the minute. He rolls all over the place and can scoot around pretty well. When I put him down on his play mat he's usually a couple of feet away by the time I come back to get him. He also continues to be a very happy boy and loves to laugh and smile at anyone who will look at him.

He has also started to get into this position, so I imagine his mobility is going to increase dramatically in the next month. Time for baby-proofing again!

On the weekends we have been taking advantage of the unseasonably cool weather and visiting local parks. Come to find out the Columbus area has an awesome park system. There are tons very close to us that are beautiful. The past two Saturday's we have loaded the boys up in the Double Bob and gone for a run on nature trails. Both times the weather has been overcast and cool which have been perfect for running and enjoying the scenery. This picture is when we got home from our last park outing. Grant was wearing his coat because it had been raining and the temperature was in the high 60's, in July! Can't complain!

Ryan and I were able to do a babysitter swap with some friends and went to the Movie Tavern this past weekend to see Harry Potter. This is a theater were you can order and eat food while you watch the movie. The movie was great but Ryan and I both agree if we go to that theater again we would eat before hand, it was not very good. At least the seats were very comfy!

One final activity was a stop into the Steak n' Shake. It's a burger chain they have out here that we wanted to try (there were not many shake and burger joints in NC). It was cheap and pretty good, although we did not even want a shake so we'll have to go again and try one. They did give Grant a fun little paper hat and '56 Chevy Bel Air that he's been loving. He calls it his pirate hat and hot rod.

Wood Family Reunion

We were lucky to spend the last week of June in Utah visiting family and attending the Wood family reunion. We spent the first couple of days of our trip at Nana's house and got to hang out with my brothers, see some cousins and meet up with my old roomie, Jenna, at BYU. Then we headed over to Gavin's house in West Haven (north of SLC) for the reunion. It was a lot of fun! Some of the activities included: checking out the Thanksgiving Pointe Gardens, touring the open house of the Oquirrh Mountain Temple, spending a day at Lagoon (mostly at the water park), enjoying the West Haven Days parade and breakfast, eating yummy food, talking around the fire pit at night and just enjoying each others company.

The first and following pictures are of our first ride on the carousel at Lagoon. We did not buy Grant a pass since it was free for kids under 3 who only went to the water park and rode a few specified rides, the carousel being one of them. So we spent our day between the water park and carousel. I guess it was good that Grant enjoyed the carousel much better than he did last year.

Here is a picture of the Wood men and little Brooklyn. Glade a Misty waited to have her blessing at the reunion so the family could take part, it was very nice.

All the late nights chatting over the fire pit started to catch up with Ryan so he tried getting some sleep while he could. One morning Tate fell back asleep after I had fed him in bed so I just left him and Ryan to sleep in some more. I came to check in on them about 1 1/2 hours later and they were still cozied up and sleeping, I had to get a picture.

Another morning I came down to get something out of the room and found Ryan like this. Yes, he's using a nursing pad to block out the morning light. I guess you have to grab whatever you can find.

Tate had fun at the reunion being passed around among the family and charming everyone with his big smile. He's quite the social kid and will get all excited and smiley whenever anyone looks at him. It makes him easy to hold.

Grant especially had a fun time this year. He loved playing with all his aunts, uncles and cousins and really loved all the great toys Gavin and Wendy have at their house. He spent a lot of time trying to recruit people to go play with him as he would go up to his uncles and ask "wanna go downstairs and play cars with Granty?". It was hard to resist and they were nice to oblige.

Cheryl helped Grant discover the many uses of the gaming chairs. As seen above she showed him how they could rock all the way back to the ground and up again, and then had to show him again and again...
The week ended too quickly and we were sad to say goodbye. We got back to Ohio Sunday night at 10pm and Ryan started up with school Monday morning. The first week actually went quite smoothly and we are now trying to get back into the swing of normal life.