Catastrophe!

After Mass on Sunday, we received a phone call from our neighbour at Sanibel Drive to let us know that there were icicles outside our window so we had better go over to take a look!

 When we got there, Rick opened the door to the sound of gushing water and a disaster of epic proportion!  Jack Frost and his winter goblins had struck again.  Somehow, a water pipe burst and we ended up with torrents of water coursing through the main level and the basement.  Rick was dismayed as we had just finished renovations on the place!

 
After much sloshing, Rick managed to turn off the water, but it still kept coursing down for at least another 15 minutes after the water shut off.  Finally, we felt that the water was starting to slow down and abate, so we then rushed off to Katy's recital at the nursing home in Edina, while calling neighbours and our insurance agent to figure out what to do. 

We found an emergency water damage specialist to come and clean up the disaster and prevent further damage.  They arrived with 30 huge fans and massive dehumidifiers.  The man has been camping in his warehouse because they have had 60 calls this week with water emergencies due to the extreme cold. 

While this is a disaster of epic proportions that will be costly and inconvenient for us, we do feel very fortunate when we think of all the other families our emergency water specialist told us about.  He has had to evacuate families into motels because of the water damage and people's homes and belongings have been ruined.  We feel fortunate that we are not having to deal with all of that on top of the property damage.

We have been such enthusiastic new Minnesotans that I did begin to worry whether we had jinxed ourselves.  Last night, after I parked at Cub on the way home, I thought my windscreen was cracking from the cold because I could see and feel huge "cracks" on the inside of my windscreen but not the outside.  I went outside to take a picture this morning but they were gone.  Obviously just frost that was so bad it looked and felt like cracked glass.

So with that panic gone and just the one cold disaster to deal with, we are still "embracing Winter" and enjoying the beautiful blue skies and Thomas Kincade scenery!  I still do feel like I am in a Bavarian oil painting or something when I gaze out at the deep drifts of snow.