Life

I wrote this to publish it a couple days ago and thought I had.  

A lot has happened recently - some of it fun and some not.  It's been rather a roller coaster ride of emotions overall.

Gives an idea of how deep the snow was - looking southwest towards the chicken coop

10 days ago was a fun day.  I drove one of the buses going to the Shrine Circus.  It was the first time I've ever done this and I was nervous as it is a rather big deal.  But it turned out to be a lot of fun - our school district sent 5 buses total - 3 from the elementary school I drive for and 2 from the other one.  We loaded our 3 buses about 8:30 and then moved to a road just off the main east/west highway in the area.  We waited there about half an hour until we got word the buses from the school districts to the west were on the way.  (That wait was the most stressful part of the day as that was when the kids got restless - you can't load 40-50 students on a bus then have them sit for 30 minutes and expect them to stay reasonably quiet and still!)  We fell into line about the middle where there was a gap in buses.  By the time all the buses had joined the convoy we had 50 school buses, an ambulance, a wrecker and a spare bus.  (I never saw the end of the line).  We also had 29 police cars from a large number of different departments - I counted at least 5 different departments including state and county police.  It was amazing.  Buses all drove in the left lane with 4 way flashers on while the emergency vehicles were lights and sirens in the right lane.  Police cars would hopscotch ahead and block every single intersection so the buses simply kept moving - nothing stopped us.  We got to the edge of the "city" and merged onto the north south interstate highway.  Police cars blocked that traffic as well - we had the entire interstate to ourselves for the 2 mile or so stretch we were on it.  Then local city traffic was also stopped for the convoy until we were parked in the venue for the circus.  After the performance was over we were served packed lunches on the buses before we lined back up and reversed the process returning back to the schools.  While the driving was a bit more stressful it made for a memorable day.  I only wished I could have been in two places at one time so I could have got pictures.  (There were people lined up along the edge of the highway at different places taking pictures - I even saw one gentleman in the median in the middle.  I decided that if I wasn't driving this trip next year I would definitely be parked along the route someplace so I could take pictures).  It was also nice that the weather, while cold wasn't excessively so and wasn't snowy. 

The next day Hubby and I were in a convoy of a different sort - much more sad.  We attended the funeral of the son of one of his high school buddies.  He had committed suicide.  What made it so much more difficult than most funerals I've been to is that I felt that there was no hope given.  No mention of salvation or anything though there was plenty of Scripture read.   

Starting Saturday night through last evening we had snow falling.  Churches were canceled all over the area.  We ended up with between 12-14 inches at our house.  It started blowing and drifting after the snow stopped and we had another snow day today.  Squirrel and Dipstick both went out this afternoon to sled with different friends.  Squirrel said the east west highway was still pretty bad this evening - traffic moving only about 30 mph.  Plows have been out all over but roads are still slick and snow-covered.  We are already on a delay for tomorrow morning - not sure we will actually go or not.  If we don't I'm certain I will need to get out tomorrow at some point.  I've been content to stay in so far.  

Yesterday morning one of Stretch's friends was killed in a rollover accident where they attend college.  Slick roads.  The campus is grieving.  Having said that they have the certain knowledge that they will see this young man again - he knew the Lord and sought to serve Him.  I met him once - he brought Stretch home for a weekend (that was cut short) his freshman year so he could attend a David Crowder concert.  Stretch was two weeks out from surgery to repair his broken leg.  His willingness to give up his time to do this was such a blessing.

My crazy cats sitting under the bird feeders