The Storm of the Century and the Wedding of the Year

That's what they're calling this massive amount of snow dumping on our heads right now (Reno, NV). My mom starting sending me pictures of the snow from her house about 3:30 yesterday while I was at work. She decided that she was going to send me pictures every 20 minutes until I got freaked out enough to leave work. I was like HA HA mom, you live so far out of town that it's only snowing really hard there. My husband called, Nah, it's only sprinkling but not sticking. Mom keeps sending me pictures and signing her emails, "Worried Mom" "Nervous Mom." I'm getting slightly worried at this point but not enough to leave work. Then my husband texts me, "Listen to your mother. It's sticking. You need to leave." Ooook.

I need to go home! I told my boss. "Absolutely, get out of here." Let's take a moment here--Where I work is like a family. We argue like crazy, we come up with great ideas and solutions together and we care about each other like family. Not one of my bosses thinks work is worth risking your life for.

I left and went to pick up my kids. By the time I picked up the second child it was coming down pretty good. Well, not as pretty good as where I had to drive to up in the North Valleys. The closer I got to home, the worse it got. And the wind was whipping around the car. I kept my cussing to the barest minimum. I did say, "ass" twice. As in "Our car kicks ASS!" There were cars every on the sides of the road. We slid a little but the car did good.

Until we got to Anderson Hill. Anderson Hill is a really steep hill between Red Rock and Cold Springs on 395 North towards the California border. I knew if I was going to have problems that it was there. For a brief moment I thought of stopping at the gas station in Red Rock and trying to cable up in a relatively controlled situation. The exit looked pretty bad and it looked like cars were making it. I'm going for it! I only made it about a 1/4 of the way. I called Mike to let him know I was going to cable up. The cables are new and Mike had explained them to me a few weeks back and how they were more simple to use.

As soon as I slid to a stop, my daughter started to cry. My son wanted to know why we were stopping and I could hear the panic in his voice. I explained to them what I was going to do and that I needed for them to be brave and keep each other company. Right before I got out of the car I thought, HEY what if someone hits me? I reached over to my cell phone and flipped it up. I pointed to the keys on the phone and showed my 8 year old son how to speed dial his dad and I handed it to him. I reassured them that everything was going to be ok and I got out of the car.

The cables were actually extremely simple and would have been simple to use if there wasn't so much snow!!! I remember Mike saying that the wheels needed to be slightly turned so I quick turned them. My arms weren't long enough to reach around!!! I strained to pull and they weren't getting where they needed to be. I felt a little bubble of panic start to float up but quickly shoved it back down. I pulled hard enough to get them to connect but they weren't snapped into place. I did the same on the other side and got into the car. As we pulled up the hill I could hear the cables wapping against my wheel wells but HEY we were moving and quite well to boot. We had to stop a little further up for a REAR WHEEL DRIVE truck that was stuck smack dab between the two lanes. There was no way he could go foward and refused to go back so he stopped both lanes of traffic. Nice. And we eventually got home. The kids spent about 5 minutes telling their dad about how brave they were (in my daughter's case, she was "bwave.") I was putting down my things in the kitchen and my son came up to me and quietly asked, "I was brave mom, huh." I told him that he was VERY brave. I could hear him in the back seat taking deeeep breaths and telling his sister about how everything was going to be ok. It brings tears to my eyes even now. He was so brave.

The wedding I am going to miss in about 30 minutes was indeed going to be the wedding of the year. Besides my best friend's Halloween wedding with a costume party as a reception, this was going to be awesome. The 2 people getting married are former co-workers who met at work. You will never meet another couple in the world as suited as them. Apart they are amazing but together...there isn't a word to describe them. Last November they went out for a nice dinner at a local upper crust Italian restaurant. At one point he excused himself from the table. He came back and took her hand and said, "Come here." She figured he saw a mutual friend who wanted to say hi. She came around the corner into the back part of the restaurant and there were several of his music fraternity friends from the east coast (all had flown from the east coast to be a part of his asking her to marry him--he is that kind of friend to them). They all sang a beautiful song to her and at the end he asked her to marry him. It was beautiful. And it's snowing right now. Snowing hard. And I know that only about 100 of the 250 people she invited will be able to make it. Even her Maid of Honor is stuck on the east coast because no one can fly into Reno. I'm so incredibly sad because a girl should have the wedding she dreams of. This girl should have the wedding of her dreams.

*sigh*