Party At My House!

As you all know or have heard the past couple of days has been interesting to say the least. Wednesday night the weather started issuing a Blizzard Advisory for our area and winter weather warnings and watches. Last time this happened, I ended up staying in a hotel in Duluth because I wasn't able to cross that darn bridge. But this time was different. I had to make it home because I was having my Pampered Chef party at my house! I had talked to Michelle, the consultant who had done Rachel's, a co-worker. Michelle lives in Hinckley, MN and I was a little worried she wasn't going to make it up, but at noon Thursday, she decided it was a go and would be here. I was very excited, needless to say! As soon as I was done, early too, on Thursday from work, I rushed home to pick up my mom and run to the grocery store to pick up the ingredients for the Creamy One Pot Pasta we were making for dinner.

Well, I seemed to have forgotten how busy the grocery store gets when a winter storm warning occurs! It took us twenty minutes to get through the check-out. You'd think people would have started planning ahead of time since we all know this is what happens when winter is here! Anyways, we made it home in time for Michelle to show up and start the prepping for the party. My mom and mother-in-law, Donna, were helping pick up a few more things and set up others. Before we knew it, it was already 6:30 and people started showing up! The party-goers of the evening consisted of: Rachel (my co-worker), Amber Manion (Mike M.'s wife who is due at the end of the month), her mother-in-law Mary Jo Manion, Carleen B (Joe's parents neighbors), Peggy (Joe's co-worker), Alaina and her daughter Kristin (friends of the Martin family), and Betsy (Joe's god-mother). It was great! I got to show alot of them our house since most of them hadn't been here, ever! Plus, Joe took my dad and his over to Canal Park to check out the amazing waves on the lake and then out to Shammrock for pizza. Keeping them out of the house was the plan, of course, for the girls evening!

The party went very well! We had a great little meal and deserts, as well as people being very interested in ordering items! So far, there were over $900 in sales for the few people that were there. Since the weather wasn't playing with us well, alot of people called and placed order over the phone. I am hoping to get a couple more throughout the week as well. Since I knew Michelle had a ways to drive, we finished things up fairly early around 8pm and she was on the road. Just as she left, it started snowing a little here. I didn't get a call from her until after 10pm that night. It took her almost two hours to get from my house in Superior, to Hinckley, MN! She ended up running into more weather along the way, but did get home safely.

Throughout Thursday night, all you could here was the wind blowing, heavily. I didn't sleep all that well, but at least I got a little. On Friday morning, my parents and Joe were already downstairs watching the news, only to find out we were to get more snow throughout the day. So my parents decided to stay and hang out little more until things settled down. Well, at about 9 AM, our power went out and we were powerless for four hours! We were all wrapped up in blankets and sat around for the morning playing Phase 10 (thanks Jess!). At about 1pm, the power returned and we sat to watch a movie. Unfortunately, everyone else fell asleep while I was stuck watching the movie, The Day After Tomorrow by myself. At about 4:30 or so, we jumped in the car and headed out to Joe's parents house for dinner. Since my parents weren't too eager about jumping in the car quite yet, they stayed the night again. Early Saturday morning, they took off and headed home, Joe went to work at Starbucks, and I returned home to work on school work and to relax without anyone around!