Snowed-In, With Company from the Blogosphere

When I was a child, the most exciting times would be when I'd be snowed-in at my grandparents' house on their farm with either my cousins, or a friend from in-town, with whom I was having a sleepover.  As an only child, it meant I'd get to spend more time with other kids my age, have someone to play with, and share the excitement of a large snowfall and, possibly, a power outage (woohoo!).  I'm pretty sure it wasn't so exciting for my grandparents to be stranded in the woods on the edge of a large field, the snow too deep to venture out in, but childhood is blind to such concerns. 

Those were the days when snowfalls like that were not so uncommon.  This year seems to be the year to relive that, the year when we've actually been able to utilize our previously unused plastic disc sled on a whopping four separate occasions.  And, in the fashion of being stranded with a friend, I was able to relive that as well last week when the Down Syndrome Affiliates In Action conference came to DC, return flights home were canceled for many people as bad weather infiltrated their home airports, and bad weather then dumped itself on our own area in the form of 8 1/2 inches of fresh, cold, white stuff.

Deborah, better known as Ben's mommy, was just one such stranded flyer, with whom I had just joined for dinner on Saturday night.  Sunday morning she posted on Facebook that her flight had been canceled, and I offered her our spare room until she was able to depart on Tuesday.  It's funny, we'd never met before, but our time spent together felt as if we'd known each other for a long time - comfortable, easy, and full of non-stop chatter (wait...maybe that was Samantha, who didn't close her mouth for even one second the whole time she was here...).  A full couple of days of Academy Awards, sledding, Chinese food (thanks to the local take-out), French food (thanks to my awesome husband who cooks like a pro!), red wine (thanks to, uh, grapes), Ds webinars, pancakes, and the entertainment of my Energizer Bunny child who latched on to Deborah like spots on a ladybug, and I think she may have been looking for a vacation away from it all.

Thank you, Deborah, for such a fun couple of days and for letting us be your surrogate family!