Last January we had a series of winter storms here in Utah. Obviously winter storms aren’t anything abnormal in Utah, but these were not the normal storms. These were the types of storms that cancelled schools for the whole valley. 3 freaking times! I grew up here and I remember school being cancelled a total of twice. The last time was in 2002. Todd and I had gotten married the summer before and were attending Utah State. We were living on the top of a hill right above the football stadium. I remember all this because we totaled our car on that hill during that snowstorm. Todd lost control when he hit a patch of ice and hit a truck. The bed of the truck went through our windshield. Imagine a tail light 2 inches from your face! That was awesome!

But back to this year! By the time the 3rd snow day in a month we were getting pretty used to the 6 am phone call that doomed my daily weekday routine to which I’ve grown to love so much. Then I had to figure out how to entertain 3 kids cooped up in a house where the doors to the outside world were literally frozen shut. Well, expect when my husband conviently needed to go to work. Thank you Lord for cable, which entertained them for 1/2 hour incraments in between fist fights, burp contests, and seeing what object can fly down the stairs the fastest.

We had a series of “incidents” as we call them now during these storms. The first one all started with me thinking I could pull the “fun mom” card one nasty stormy night and suggested we have a movie and hot chocolate night. I put the water in my hello kitty teapot, turned on the stove, and started boiling the water. At least I thought I was boiling water. Word of advice: make sure you’ve turned on the right burner before getting distracted and walking away! Unfortunately instead of boiling water I started a small kitchen fire because I turned on the burner that had my favorite pair of kitchen sheers and a few kitchen towels sitting directly on it. I really liked those sheers too. Anyway, we did get the fire out quickly and eventually the kids stopped screaming in terror. But instead of movie and hot chocolate night we had a freezing our butts off because we had to open all the windows to get the smoke out of the house night!

Our 2nd incident happened in between snowstorms. The sun came out for a few hours and the 6 foot snow mounds started to melt. It was when they started to melt that we discovered that our neighbor’s yard is slightly higher than ours, creating a cute little hill. It’s funny after 9 years in our house I never noticed that. But we definitely discovered that hill when all the neighbor’s ground water ended up in our basement. I went into Ben’s room to get his laundry and stepped in a puddle. At first I thought the dog peed on the floor and immediately started yelling at her. Then I realized it was really cold…..and everywhere! It ended up flooding 3 rooms in our basement. Everybody and everything moved upstairs for 2 weeks while we dried out, and once we got the $1900 bill from the restoration company our summer vacation was officially cancelled!

But the biggest incident of all started he night before the first big snow storm. And is still going on now in mid April.  I was preparing our sweet little cat Luca to go to the vet the next morning to get fixed. Her Mama, Abby, had given birth to Luca and her 3 siblings the year before and we obviously wanted to avoid making that happen again. But our vet is a 20 minute drive away on not the safest road in the valley. So when we got dumped on that morning and I ended up being stranded with the miniature 3 stooges I cancelled her appointment. That night she went into heat. Of course! The next night, after snow day 2, surprisingly enough even after strict instructions to not let her outside somebody did! So picture this if you will: me running in pjs and boots through 2 1/2 feet of snow chasing a crazy horny cat! And all the while screaming at her to remember who she is and don’t be a whore. It was a classy moment for me! Unfortunately we didn’t see sweet Luca again until the next morning….when I caught her under the patio with neighbor cat. And I knew it was too late. Luca was pregnant! I know I could have had the pregnancy aborted. After years of infertility and 4 miscarriages in my own life, I didn’t have the heart to do it. As the weeks went by and the snow slowly melted (flooding many of our neighbors home by the way), Luca’s little belly kept growing. In fact, she was getting so big I was started to get concerned. On Friday March 10th Todd and I hired my sister to babysit so we could go out. When we got home the boys announced Luca was “leaking”! A 1/2 hour later Olaf, Rocky, and Moose entered the world! I remember thinking it was odd that she only had 3. Then around 1:30 am I took one last peak at the babies before going to bed and there was little Pearl! I was shocked! And I was even more shocked when the next morning I woke up to little Sevie! Luca had 5 beautiful little kittens! A few days later I wandered down to the house of  “baby daddy” and announced to the owners that we were in laws! They were shocked too needless to say! Luca has done wonderful as a mother, which is amazing because her first birthday was a few days after the kittens were born! And much to our amazement our special needs kitty Henry really stepped up and has been a big help to Luca as well.

Now Olaf, Rocky, Pearl, Moose, and Sevie are 5 weeks old and doing great! They are by far our cutest incident of Snowmaggeden 2017! And most are still available for adoption in just a few weeks. They are adorable! They’re playful and inquizative and so used to children! We are going to be sad to see them leave but are excited for them to be someone else’s forever friend. And the day after they get adopted Luca is getting fixed! Because even though its April its still Utah and it could snow all over again anytime!