Nifty, Nifty, looks who's Fifty

Today was Joe's 50th birthday. We have been giving him a present a day for the past 12 days, like the 12 days of Christmas. For his big gift, I gave him a NASCAR Driving Experience where he gets to drive an actual Stock Car at Richmond Speedway in April.

We started our day at my Dad's in Northern VA and left there early since I wanted to put in half a day at my office down here. So, Joe took the kids in the Suburban and drove home and I took his car and enjoyed the peace and quite and drove to work.

Joe called after he got home to tell me that we had no water. Then he called the city, who came out and told Joe that the pipes were frozen. We've never had a problem in the past with pipes freezing so I wasn't even thinking that was a possibility when I left Wednesday night. Joe was told that the pipes froze because we were gone and the water was just sitting in the pipes and not flowing in them. He was told to turn in the heat in the house and open the cabinets to help the pipes thaw out. As of 11:25pm, we still don't have any running water in the house.

The worst part about having no water, is the toilets. By the time I got home, every toilet in the house has been flushed dry. So, in order to get enough water to flush the toilets, I used a shovel to chop through the ice in the pool and have been pumping water in to a 5 gallon bucket to fill the toilets. Did I mention yet that it's cold outside here?