Football & Fairy Tales The McSwains: January

Because of everything going on, I'm behind on updating on our month of January. In early January, I had to go to Atlanta for a certification class for work so I took Madison Claire with me to stay with my parents. We drove down on a Sunday afternoon and they were saying that the south was going to get bad weather, so I dropped her off at my parents place and then headed to my hotel - on the other side of town, about 45 minutes away. My parents tried to talk me into staying at their house but I decided to go on down to the hotel anyway.

I got to the hotel around 5pm and by 7pm the snow had arrived and it covered things quickly. Once I realized how bad it was, I had a brief moment of freaking out and thinking to myself "why did I come here?". I thought that I could maybe make it back to my parents house if I left right away so I repacked my suit case very quickly and ran out of the hotel to try to leave. Someone was pulling into the parking lot and yelled out at me "are you crazy?!?". I couldn't even get out of the parking lot so I re-parked, went back into the hotel and proceeded to be stuck there for 3 days.

I participated in the certification class virtually on Monday and then on Tuesday afternoon ventured out in the Honda Pilot for the 2 mile drive to the hotel where the rest of the participants were staying. I made the drive okay (though it was scary) and as I was pulling into the hotel parking lot, noticed that a pizza shop was open across the street. I had had room service for 4 meals in a row, so a piece of pizza sounded better than a million dollars to me. I decided I would venture across the street and made it across the street fine but as soon as I tried to step in the parking lot I 100% COMPLETELY BUSTED on the ice. I'm talking, feet slipped out from underneath me, I think my body was parallel to the ground in the air and I slammed on the ground on my tailbone. OUCH is all I have to say about that.

I crawled on my hands and knees over to the curb and sat there for a while just praying I'd be able to stand up and make it back across the street into the hotel. I did, but the pain just throbbed and throbbed so by the time I made it to the lobby I was bawling and of course couldn't reach Ryan on the phone and knew no one there other than some people that had been on a 5 hour conference call with me the day before. It was pretty lonely.

Wednesday afternoon I made it from where I was staying out to my parents house and it was probably the scariest hour long drive of my life. Portions of the road were just solid ice and cars were sliding everywhere. I once again cursed myself for not buying the 4 wheel drive. I just prayed and prayed over and over again that God would help me make it home and not get stuck far from home by myself on the side of the road, pregnant, with no good walking shoes. God blessed that trip and I made it home...I'm still not really sure how and I don't want to EVER do that again. My next car will have 4 wheel drive or all wheel drive - mark my words.

The next 2 days were fun because we were still stuck, but at least we were stuck with my family and I was with Madison Claire. We finally made it back to Nashville that Saturday...it was quite the adventure and a trip we won't forget. Ryan was so happy to see us! Here are a few pics from that week:

Sleeping in the car on the way down...such a big girl