frigid florida

For President's Day weekend we went to Ft. Myers/Bonita Springs/Naples FL to see my parents and grandparents. Last year my parents spent one month at their very own Del Boca Vista and this year they are spending two, which gives them enough time to socialize at bridge club, water aerobics, and the Superbowl and Oldies parties. It was a good excuse to go to Florida.

After 12+ hours of airport delays, we arrived around 4am Saturday morning. My brother and cousin Kelley and Greg were also there, so that was nice. We were hoping for some time on the beach, but the cool temps in the 50s and low 60s kept us inside for a lot of the time.

It was still a very nice trip, although it went by too quickly. We watched a lot of Olympics coverage, did a little shopping, rode in my dad's new car, saw Mimi stare at her iPhone to get KU-Iowa State updates, and my personal highlight - seeing my mom fist pump like Pauly D in the Jersey Shore.

I think our next trip to the sunshine state will be in the summer in Pensacola.

bizzaster

We have seen a pretty unbelievable amount of snow in DC in the last few days. On Friday and Saturday it snowed around 25 inches in our neighborhood. There was evening lightning that night and it was coming down so hard it looked like rain. It was some good snowball-making stuff.

Lelaine spent most of the weekend indoors, while I decided to go on a bar crawl in a nearby neighborhood on Saturday and then go to the Caps-Penguins game Sunday (Caps had a come from behind 5-4 in OT win with Ovi pulling a hat trick to extend the win streak to 14!). For the Superbowl we went to a party at Doug's, but we missed the first quarter because of lengthy metro delays.

For the next two days it stayed just cold enough to allow a small top layer to melt during the day and for the slush to then freeze over to ice at night. Then yesterday we got hit again, this time with somewhere between 8-12 inches. In addition to all the snow, there were wind gusts of over 50mph - it was an actual blizzard!

This created another snow day (also got to stay home Monday) and we decided to see what the roof of our building looked like. I took a tape measure and in one area it was 30 inches, although it wasn't on the ground because I couldn't break through all the ice at the very bottom. As you can see, it was up above Lelaine's waist, and she was still standing on the hard pack. In the really white picture on the right, there is a parked car about ten feet in front of the camera, but there was so much snow and wind that you couldn't really see it. The picture to the left is from when the wind died down. The two mounds in the center-bottom are actually cars that have been buried. This was the view from the sidewalk right in front of our window. When it was at its worst, you could barely see the yellow and green building across the street - in the middle of the day.

In theory we are headed back to work tomorrow - if we can walk to the metro and it is operating - but then on Friday we headed to Bonita Springs, FL to see my family. 70 degrees is going to feel pretty nice.

snow can be good and bad

Last weekend the forecast called for snow so Sam and I woke up early and drove up to Pennsylvania to go skiing. The forecast held and we had some nice snow on the "mountain." Six plus hours of good skiing later, we headed back to DC. It was a fantastic day for the boys, which was capped off by watching Mizzou beat Okie State in the lodge when taking a break drinking some hot chocolate.

That night Lelaine, Sam's wife Alison, and the rest of book club went to a concert in Virginia. There was a bit of car trouble, and Sunday morning we tried to drive out to help out the stranded vehicle. On the way there I managed to run over something sharp, which blew out a tire on the Alero and seems to have negatively affected the muffler/exhaust and the area where the bumper and quarter panel meet. So on the way to fix a broken car, I managed to wreck mine. We then called Doug, who was going to come out to help us. His car managed to die on the way to the scene of the incident. Although he got it up and running, it was obvious that we weren't meant to be driving that day.

The car still isn't fixed - we are having an insurance adjuster look at it next week - and hopefully the damage to the wallet won't be too bad. I haven't minded taking the subway to work every day this week, although Mrs. Bigelow doesn't share the same view.

What started out as a wonderful weekend of skiing ended up not being the best weekend of my life.

st. louis

In mid-January we had the pleasure of visiting Allen and Heather in St. Louis. We had been trying to make it to their place since they moved from DC (2 years ago...sniffle sniffle), and we finally made it. It was a short trip, thanks to the inflexibility of US Air vouchers, but we had a great time.

In addition to catching up with them and seeing their nice neighborhood - which happens have the Container Store that my mom drives to from KC - we went to Iron Barley, a place we saw on Diners Drive Ins and Dives (highly recommend the schnitzel and spaetzel); played a lot catchphrase; enjoyed the company of their dog Lilly and cat Ally; and went to an excellent bbq place called Pappy's, where Allen has made himself a regular and is on a first name basis with the owner who tested my on my bbq knowledge and rewarded my picks of favorite places in KC (Oklahoma Joe's and LC's) with a free rib while we waited in line. Like this post, it was a short trip, but hopefully we will make it back to see them soon.

Stay Tuned!

One of resolutions was to blog more...even if it was just a short post, but as you can tell, we're not doing a good job.

But never fear, we plan on updating the blog soon with some backdated posts. Also, look for some posts and tweets about DC's "epic snowstorm" that will "jeopardize DC's all time snow record."