Ice Day and Old Pictures

Greetings from frigid, frozen-over NW Arkansas! For those who are not from this part of the world you may not be familiar with all of the different ways water can fall from the sky and keep you from going to work. Well, today the Gosneys (and everyone else here) experienced just about all of them. Yesterday started with freezing rain, which continued for quite some time until changing over to sleet and, finally, some snow. The snow and sleet aren't too bad, but the freezing rain encases everything in a thin (or in this case extremely thick) layer of ice, making roads impassable and power lines snappable. (Snappable isn't a word, so just go with it.) So far the Gosney household still has power, but others aren't so lucky. Needless to say, the good folks at Wal-Mart Home Office were encouraged to stay home and not risk life and limb. The Gosneys readily oblidged. Attached are a few shots taken from the front and back yard. Notice the driveway is a solid sheet of ice, probably about an inch and a half thick. Sharon, particularly, is extremely sad about not being able to go into the office and insisted she needed a chocolate cake in order to deal with her grief. (She cited "extra-ordinary circumstances" for the reason to have non-healthy food on a weekday.)

Back in Utah Sharon's family spent some time looking through old photographs and decided it was a good time to digitize as much as possible. So, after a trip to Sam's Club (where they have a cool machine that you can feed stacks of pictures into and they get scanned in with lightening speed) Sharon and her siblings were able to take home CDs with many of their photographs on them. Meanwhile, an old friend of Matts from the old house he grew up in was doing the same thing as he visited his family for Christmas. This friend, also named Matt (totally cool when you are 7 years old) lived in the house directly behind Matt (even cooler to have someone with your same name share your backyard fence.) Friend Matt sent over some pictures that brought back lots of memories. And now you get to enjoy a few pictures of Matt and Sharon as kiddos. Note how much hair Matt had. *sigh* Matt particularly enjoys the picture of Sharon looking longingly at her brother's birthday cake. Clearly, Sharon's sweet tooth was established at a young age.

For those of you in the ice storm with us, stay warm and safe! And for those who aren't, be glad!