better late than never

when i was back on the east coast this winter for christmas i had the wonderful, delightful pleasure of watching my baby sister graduate from virginia tech!

 

hard to tell but there she is! yay katherine!

they were calling for some snow before graduation started, but we all (mom, dad, me, heather, katherine, auntie and uncle, and other auntie) figured, "hey, how bad can it get?" well, the short answer is bad bad bad bad bad.

 

arf arf. mom what is this stuff??

 

we got back to katherine's townhouse and did the world's fastest move out. filled three cars in 30 minutes. wouldn't you know that between 30 minutes to pack the car, 15 minutes to toast katherine with milk and papa john's (num num) and a few hugs more than an inch of snow fell? let me tell you people, virginia cannot handle the snow like chicago, and it was a m-e-s-s. heather and i had to drive a key 2 miles. TWO MILES (that is major because i don't ever use capital letters) and it took well over an hour. after we did that it took us another hour to get to the highway. the highway is a six mile stretch that leads to the interstate. would you believe it if i said that it took us six.hours. to get to the interstate? in those six hours we: 

got in a snowball fight roadside

got stuck in multiple snow banks-including me pushing heather's civic (wellington? is that the car's name?) out of the snow

got hit by a car that slid down the hill into us

slept

contemplated the fact that we would inevitably starve to death

laughed

sang (mostly me-heather loves it when i sing)

contemplated where we (by we i mean me) would use the bathroom

 

holy snow batman!

 

so we get to the interstate. omg. the interstate is closed! fml! wtf! fmmfl! (sorry mom!) so what to do, what to do...well duh i will dig out a path and we will go the wrong way on the entrance ramp and head back to where we came from to our very warm and cozy hotel (thanks hawthorne suites!) and camped out for the next two days. 

sitting in this snow for 8 hours will do this to ya...

22" in total fell over the virginia/maryland area in less than 12 hours. that is a lot of snow in a short amount of time no matter where it falls, but in an area that is ill-suited to handle even 2" of snow, this was crippling. hence, we spent two days in the hotel and lived off of dorito's and diet dr. pepper (not a lot available in the sundries store of a limited service hotel). oh, and? my cell phone died and my charger was plugged into the wall in my office 1,000 miles away. perfect!

oh yeah, that's healthy.

the best part of this? spending 2 solid days of quality time with my lovely older sister and my gorgeous little puppy. there was no escaping each other. the tv had limited channels, and neither of us had the foresight to bring our laptops (oy!) lots of sisterly bonding.

 

heather + lily + hotel = lovely weekend

oh, and? lots of time for pictures!

aww best buy employees/college students are so cute

 

gangsta pup

the other best part of this, was, of course, how incredibly breathtaking the sky is after the downpour of flakes, when the storm has cleared and the sun is setting.

 

the worst part? shoveling heather's spot out when we got to her condo. hard work, but we are strong, able bodied women, and we got through the 2' (yes, that is 2 FEET) of snow in about 20 minutes. et voila!

 

 that shoveled portion? that is just the sidewalk.

  

one exhausted caro.

p.s.

 

not the smartest driver...

good luck this weekend virginia! i hear it's supposed to be even worse this time!!