How NOT to deal with snow

People are starting to get desperate. They want this snow and ice gone, and they are starting to go a little nutty trying to get rid of it. Take for example the good people I work with. They are mostly smart and intelligent people, one from Southern California and the other Las Vegas. Over the weekend they decided that they were going to get rid of the ice no matter what.

He decided that he was going to start by prying the ice out of the gutters with a screw driver. He jabbed and stabbed and pried and scrapped, all to no avail. Then she decided to pour hot water in the gutters to loosen the ice and the ice would just pop out. Instead it just went through all the holes he had poked in ALL the gutters. Yup, all of them.

She then decided to try to deal with the "ice at the front door" situation. He didn't want to use salt because salt would ruin all the things. Very well known fact that using salt one time ruins anything it touches instantly. Sand then? No, they didn't have sand. What they did have was kitty litter. Yup. That happened. Between the melting and refreezing they have quite a bit of frozen kitty litter leading up to the front door.  So much better than salt.

The kitty litter was starting to bother them (lol, can't imagine why) so she decided to melt the ice her way. Who needs to wait on the sun when you have a blow torch? So she went at it blow torch style.... and ended up just melting the welcome mat that was frozen in the ice. She used up all the propane and at the end of it all, had accomplished next to nothing except adding Welcome Mat to the list of things to buy along with new gutters.

I gave them my "I've lived in the snow and ice my whole life" advice, get some freaking salt, and wait for the sun to do it's thing. We do live in St. George, and the high today is in the 50's. Instead they decided to put up a sign on their front door "WARNING: ICE! Do not approach door!".

Silly St. Georgians.

Awkward and Awesome Thursday

Awkward:

• The tip of my middle finger going numb from climbing and having it stay that way for days afterwards. It's almost back to normal....
• Chad sending his iPhone through the wash cycle, yup, the whole cycle. He threw it in rice then attacked it with my hair dryer aaaaaaannnnd.... it turned on, and works, mostly. Thankfully we have geek sqaud and his new phone should be here soon. Phew.
• Patients who wait in my waiting room for 20 minutes and then decide they have to go the bathroom right as I call them back. Really? You couldn't have done that in the 20 minutes you spent sitting there staring blankly ahead?
• Driving in St George this week:

Awesome:

• A pull up is currently within my reach. I've never been able to do a real one and it's becoming a real possibility. A chin up totes happened this weekend.
• Cabin socks from Dicks. So Warm. So Amazing.
• Our heated blanket. We cozy up in that and are out but 9pm. lol. The animals are also in love with it.
• Today is Chad's last day of finals for the semester!
• The Twelve Days of Christmas box that my parents sent us for December. So fun, we will be making sugar cookies and watching my Grandma win all the things on The Price is Right this weekend courtesy of them!

Winter Wonderland

 

 

 

 

 

 

On Friday we were feeling pretty cocky about our current situation. We live in St. George, land of the sun!!! We weren't going to let a little snow stop us from rock climbing all weekend like we had planned.  So Friday we went out, and while cold, we still were able to climb and have a good time all bundled up.

Then Saturday came. And the weather straight up laughed in our faces as it proceeded to snow ALL DAY LONG (8 inches of snow, third largest amount on record). After breakfast we realized it wasn't slowing down any time soon. I wanted to bundle up, stay indoors, and eat cookies until I passed out in my hot cocoa. Chad had other plans. And his plans ended up being pretty freaking great once he convinced me to peel my butt off the couch.

We went out to Snow Canyon State Park, and finally saw it in the Snow. It was gorgeous, all white and red. Rukia hasn't had a more fun time in her entire life, and we loved all the hiking, photography, snow ball throwing, and (Chad's homemade) hot cocoa drinking in the middle of a very snowy and deserted desert. It really was magical. And as long as this only happens once this winter, it will continue to stay magical.

Hot vs. Cold

A patient came in yesterday and told me that she would much rather live somewhere that has a hard winter than somewhere like St. George with a ridiculous summer. I straight up laughed in her face.

She has lived here he whole life and has never experienced winter. So I decided to fill her in.

Feet of snow. Feet
Not just feet of snow but Drifting snow
Wind chill
Freezing Rain
Scraping ice off of your car
Sweeping snow off your car
Driving on sheets of ice, turning a 30 minute commute into 3 hours
Slipping and falling on said sheets of ice
Heaven forbid the heat in your car doesn't like you, you'll be toting around blankets and crying

She said that she figured you could only take so many clothes off but could always put more on. Plus, you could build a fire. Again I laughed in her face. Unless I have a fireplace I don't know where I'm building this mystical magical fire that will keep me warm in the negative degree weather with the wind whipping tiny shards of ice at my face.



Been there, done that. I'll take the blistering, hell of a summer here. Why? Because I can drive easily, float in a pool, and I know that it will end in a couple months and not drag on for a half a year.

Which looks more pleasant to you?

A Very Vegas Valentines

My parents came down to visit us and the grandparents on Valentine's Day. After Chad's last class we packed up our things and headed down to Vegas. Unfortunately we haven't really met anyone in our ward yet :( so our plan to have one of our awesome new friends let our dog out while we were gone was kinda thrown off by our lack of any kind of friends... So, we needed a new plan. We have an enclosed little patio out back and thought we would just let Rukia stay out there and set her up with some blankets in her cage as a dog house, of course with the heated blanket! We even have a fake grass rug thing out there that she could use for a potty. Nice plan huh? We were quite satisfied with our solution until we found out it was supposed to rain/snow the whole time we were gone. Bah! Now what? Well.... next best idea... barricade her in the kitchen! We set up some blankets for her, drug the rug inside hoping she'd potty there and gave her all her toys. We didn't feed her or give her much water the day before and didn't leave her with any either! I know, we're awful! We blocked off the rest of the house with our couch and bike, she's terrified of the bike so we thought it would do the trick. More on that to come...

We picked them up and headed back to our hotel at El Cortez. From there we all went to see the craziness at Freemont Street. We saw the awesome light show above the street that we'd heard so much about, it was awesome! There were men in leopard costumes, a man playing the sax, and men in bikinis and stripper shoes. We have pictures of two out of those three, I'll let you guess which one we didn't get ;)



We went out later that night and took a ton of pictures of Vegas all lit up. The next morning the grandparents told us all about their wild adventures in Vegas. They definitely had a good time getting into free shows and seeing all that Vegas is known for (wink, wink)! Who knew I had such wild grandparents!




The next morning the grandparents taught Chad and I how to play the slot machines. With some direction, their money and a little luck I was a big winner!!!! Well... I was in the positive, $17.04 baby! Woot! Never mind that to get that we put $15 in. I'm way too cheap to gamble. I'd rather go shopping :)


Chad and I headed back home Wednesday night anticipating an easy drive. Most of it was until we hit the mountains right outside the Utah border. Then the rain came. Oh boy did it rain. And we could handle the rain until it turned to snow as we climbed higher and higher into the mountains. Ok, no big deal, we're from Michigan, if there's anything that we know how to do it's drive through a bunch of snow in a blizzard. FYI driving through a blizzard in the mountains is just a little bit different than driving down 1-75 in one. Lots of turns, lots of hills and twists, and lots of me closing my eyes hoping that we weren't going to slide into the side of the mountain. We could barely see but Chad was a champ as usual and we finally made it home. Who would have thought that we would have to drive through a snowstorm here in St. George? Clearly not us!

We were back home and hesitant to see what kind of destruction had occurred in our home. Did she get out and rip everything up, chew on all the moldings, pee everywhere, poo everywhere? We opened our back door to find.... nothing. She held it the entire time! Probably helped that she had nothing in her! It was a nice surprise after the horrible drive. Ok, well that's enough talk about my puppy and her potty habits! Probably more than you needed to know ;) Good news for us though, we can leave for 24ish hours and our puppy will be fine without us!

We hope everyone had an awesome Valentine's Day whenever you decided to celebrate!