Winter's Arrival

Back at the end of 2011, Cary Anne started telling me she needed new rain boots. She would go to her closet, pull out her boots, and yell "Look! Look at how cracked these are! They don't even keep water out!" Soon, she came home from work talking about how she found the perfect pair of rain boots at a shop downtown for a mere $125. Of course, after our big move to Chicago, we couldn't exactly rush out and spend that kind of money, but CA insisted she wouldn't be able to survive the sleet and snow of winter without reliable boots.

"All you need is a big pair of galoshes," I insisted.
"That's all I want, but they're harder to find than you think!"
"We just need to go to Walmart."

In Lexington, Walmart was a 5 minute drive down the road. Here, we have to make a 20-minute cruise out to the suburbs. I was under the impression that all Walmarts are basically carbon copies, but when we walked through the doors, I realized the Lexington Walmart was actually a "nice" Walmart. The Walmart here is cramped and dingy, and the width of the aisles can make you feel claustrophobic. When we finally made it to the boots, we discovered that organization is apparently optional at this Walmart. The boots were basically in a large pile which you had to sift through to find your appropriate size. After about 15 minutes of digging, Cary Anne had 3 boots, and though they were all the right size, they were all also for her left foot. For every boot of the wrong size we found, we tried to place them back on the shelf in an understandable order, but I told CA she could probably throw every one as far as she could in separate directions and no one would notice. Eventually, we did find a full pair of boots for Cary Anne, and I bought myself a box of Skittles as a reward for only spending $23, rather than $125.

It was a good thing Cary Anne got new boots, because we recently received two substantial snow storms here in the Windy City. When we first started telling people we were moving to Chicago at the start of November, all people seemed to talk about was the weather. They reacted as if we were Napoleon telling them we were going to invade Russia at the start of winter. However, despite all the talk, up until last week, winter had been freakishly mild here, with most days lingering in the mid-40s. (I was not expecting to still be riding the Vespa around town at the start of January.) Then, about 10 days ago, roughly 8-inches of snow accumulated over about 18 hours of straight snowfall. Now I feel like we're getting a taste of the Chicago winter I was expecting to experience. Here are a couple photos I took of the lake during a more recent snow storm that dumped about 4-5 inches...

A few days after that first big snow, my parents returned for another short visit thanks to my dad's job. On Tuesday, I gave mom a tour of all the places Cary Anne and I go on a regular basis, since the first time she visited we had just moved to town and had yet to develop any sort of routine. The tour ended with us seeing Skygate (aka- "The Bean") and picking up CA from work. That night, after Pops finished up with training, he headed into town and helped me change the headlight in mine and Cary Anne's car (meaning he changed the light while I held the flashlight). Then, we all headed down to The Pony for dinner. The Pony is Chicago's bar of choice for UK alum, so they show all the sports games. That night, we got to enjoy the men's basketball team demolish Arkansas. During commercial breaks, there was a trivia contest. While we could answer some of the more basic questions about Kentucky on our own, I often texted my brother when it came to the more detailed sports questions. In the end, Jon led us to a 1st place victory, and a $30 gift card prize. It was a great evening all around. Now if we could only get more people than just my parents to visit.