Last night turned out to be a lot more fun than I thought it would.

First off, Josie and I got stuck in the street outside our house trying to get to the game.  It had stopped snowing for the moment, but we'd already gotten five inches in about four hours.  That's a lot of snow.  It came down so thick and fast that the plows, which usually do an excellent job, simply hadn't had time to clear our street and we live on a snow emergency route.  After much digging and the judicious use of kitty litter, we were able to get away from the curb.

The drive to the school was hair raising.  Every corner was so packed with snow that I thought for sure we'd get stuck again.  If the game hadn't been played at the school closest to our house and accessible by all SERs, we never would've made it.

We did get stuck again in the school parking lot.  I was trying to turn the car around to park in the street, as the lot is quite small and there was no room.  Many cars were stuck all over the place.  Several burly dad's were missing their kids' games to help push us all out of our snowy tombs.  I eventually parked on the street, crossing my fingies that I'd be able to get out later.

Our girls played very well and managed to beat a team that had beaten us during the season.  We did everything right; our defense was awesome, our offense well run and controlled.  We hustled, jumped and played like we wanted it.  Our shooting was awful, just awful.  Paige, one of our leading scorers, must've shot about 10% from the field last night.  She made up for it with outstanding defensive play, but the shooting was weird.  Josie claims that there was something wrong with those baskets.  Wrong height, tilt, whatever.  All I know is Paige threw many an air ball and the baskets weren't moving.

It was a very low scoring game.  Josie put in the points that gave us the lead and although it was a close game til the last few minutes. We ended up winning by ten. In the last minute we slowed down and ran off the clock.  Finally!   Josie was very cool about her basket.  Just dropped the bucket, then turned and trotted up the court, like she scores all the time.  She doesn't.  She rarely shoots more than three or four times in a game.  Her shooting percentage is actually pretty good.  I asked her about her 'too cool for school' attitude after the game.

"That went in?" she asked.  "I couldn't tell."

Oh.

The drive home was exciting.  Half way up a slight incline, the car stopped moving forward.  I had to back it down the block and find another way back to a plowed road.  At home I tried to get up the drive way.  Nope.  My mini van didn't have the clearance to get over the drifts.  I had to park around the corner.  A snow emergency had been called so any cars parked on our street would get ticketed and towed. 

Zack got home about the same time we did.  He couldn't get the blower started either, so he picked up a shovel and went to work.  Josie tried to help him.  I was exhausted from my shoveling earlier and the whole driving escapade so I rested for awhile.  When I finally went out to help some more, Zack had cleared 4/5 of the long, long drive.  The only thing left was a three foot drift, hard packed by the wind that went all the way across the front of the garage.  There was no where left to put it.  the wind was blowing in such a way that if we tried to throw it into the yard, it blew back in our faces and there's a six foot fence on the other side of the drive.  We had to shovel up the snow like coal and haul it behind the garage.

By ten, I was able to get my van into the garage.

Jay got home around 11:00.  His tournament starts today so he had tons of work to do.

It was a long day for all of us.