Escape from Snowzilla

The snowzilla- doomsday warnings increased in intensity all week, and by Friday when I headed to school, there were flashing signs lining the freeway that read "Blizzard Warning- Avoid Travel." So of course I raced out of class that afternoon to retrieve Finley from Michelle's (who was working from home since the government had already shut down and volunteered to save me the across-town trip) and we headed for the airport. Seth was already in Florida, enjoying 70 degree weather while drinking beer and fishing, and we were not about to miss the fun.

Hours later, we stared gloomily out our airplane window at this scene. It was really coming down, Reagan National only has one de-icer, and word on the street was that the airport was closing at 4.

We ended up surviving a three hour delay and being the second to last flight out of DC before the blizzard overtook it. Talk about a close call! I had already had visions of trying to get home in the whiteout dancing in my head- even the metro was shutting down! The only thing of comparable horror had to be five hours stuck on a plane with an alternately energetic and pissed-off Finley.

Luckily, the entire DC United Soccer Team had grabbed this last-ditch flight to get to winter training camp, and turned out to be remarkably good (and patient) with babies. This is Finley playing peekaboo with three members of the starting lineup. I was beyond grateful.

There was some wailing and gnashing of teeth once we were in the air, but eventually she gave up and passed out. Largely due to the amazing powers of the new girasol baby wrap, without which I will not fly for many, many years. (It can be used a little like a baby straitjacket.)

We finally made it, and Finley was overjoyed. She loves vacation, and wrapped up her evening by smearing mango-and-ham pizza on white hotel linens. Her favorite.

The "beach" aspect of our getaway ended with the tropical pizza toppings, however, since the storm rendered it unseasonably cold and windy. What luck! We had made it just in time for Florida's one weekend of winter, and I was beyond disappointed, having been in dire need of beach time and dreaming about reading a book by the sparkling beachfront pool at the cute retro hotel on a white sand beach I had spent hours selecting. Instead, our  little bit of"beach time" looked like this.

Luckily, the hotel had giant jenga (guess which part was Finley's favorite)

and the Clearwater Aquarium was open. Finley couldn't have cared less about the famous dolphins, but LOVED the nurse sharks

and petting the stingrays with Dad.

Sunday we realized that DC was still in a state of snow-induced panic and we were definitely not going to make it home that night, so Seth- bless his heart- drove to the airport and secured the next available flight. Which was Tuesday. We were pretty excited to have beaten the cancellation rush and to not be part of our legions of friends trying to dig out of their front doors at home, DC having gotten over two feet of snow. Unseasonable chilliness notwithstanding, the timing of this getaway was pretty epic (especially since we both ended up having school cancelled until Wednesday.)

And although I refuse to call the trip a "babymoon" as intended, since it involved zero beach time and lots of Seth-drinking-beer-with-Brian time (I was glad they had gotten to catch up, after all, and he did pull serious baby duty at Tracy's beautiful promotion ceremony, which had been our other justification for the plane ticket purchase), at least one family member had the time of her life. Partly due to the fact that "vacation" means she is allowed to have chocolate chip pancakes. With whipped cream.

Monday it finally warmed up some, and Finley got to enjoy that quintessentially Florida pastime, golf. The mini variety, anyway. She tried to swim in all the water obstacles, and somebody let her have her own golf club.

She also sampled- and loved- Cuban food.

By Tuesday morning, we had gotten a little bit of sun and it was time to come home. We were a little anxious about getting back, since we knew thousands of flights had been cancelled, but our luck held and we made it to Dulles only a little behind schedule. We were grateful to uber for the across-town trek to Reagan, which to be honest, was the fault of the travel agent- yours truly- and not the weather event. I wouldn't call our return trip seamless, but it was definitely less painful than it could have been.

Even if economy parking was a disaster area and my poor little car took some work to rescue. (Seth having taken Finley home triumphantly in his gas-guzzling monstrosity with offroad tires, for which I am grateful exactly once a year.)

Home safe and sound, Seth and I congratulated ourselves repeatedly for our well-timed escape. (We even made it back in time for Finley to enjoy some sledding in 50 degree weather! Although Seth had hours of shoveling and salting to catch up on.)

We're actually spending all week catching up, with compressed school schedules and still-ongoing ice delays. But at least we're not recovering from a long weekend of being housebound! which would have been brutal indeed.

Couple funny photos of the week. I was beyond excited Monday to finally get in a beach sunset. And this is what my beach buddies were doing: napping, and sports score- checking. Fail.



This one makes me laugh out loud. Like father, like daughter, glued to the TV at a sports bar while enjoying chicken quesadillas.

And, Finley's contribution to the shoveling effort. She stood at the door and yelled "yay, Dad, yay!"