Alpine District officials initially said Ridgeline would be open at 11 a.m. Thursday. They then decided the school would be closed the full day Thursday. "I'm going to sleep all day," Chidester said as she scraped ice off her car in the Ridgeline school parking lot at 8 a.m.

Cedar Valley Elementary School was also closed Thursday. Four other schools opened at 11 a.m. Thursday: Pony Express, Harvest, Saratoga Shores and Fox Hollow Elementary Schools.

Chiniquy said, "If you ever needed a snow day, today was it."

Parent Melanie Quintana says she thinks the district did a great job. The mom said she received two voice mail messages at home from the district: one when the buses were back at the school, and then another call to tell her to come pick up her children. Students also called their parents once they arrived at the school.

Quintana's son, Trace Pahl, 9, a third-grader, spent the night at the school. "I wanted to get him home but I couldn't," she said.

Neighbors brought quilts, blankets and sleeping bags to the school. The students slept in individual classrooms, separated by gender and supervised by teachers.

The school had emergency food of frozen peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Neighbors also brought over water, cheese, crackers, fruit and cereal for the stranded group. The local grocery store, Kohlers, donated many food items. There were even toothbrushes for everyone.

Some neighbors who lived close to the school picked up children for other residents. "It's quite a community," said sixth-grade teacher Andrea Park. Many neighbors offered their homes to the teachers and students, but educators decided it was safer to keep the group all together in one place.

Every parent had an adventure to tell. Diane Hardy said she picked up her child at 4:15 p.m. and headed home. They didn't make it past the gas station at 5300 West and 11000 North in Highland, where they were stuck until 10:15 p.m.

They passed the six hours by playing games. They would go through the alphabet and come up with an item for each letter: something they wanted to eat or a place they wanted to go: Alfredo and Acapulco.

They finally turned around and stopped at the Wendy's restaurant nearby, where many people were stranded for the night. They decided the school would be more fun and comfortable, so they headed there and arrived at midnight.

They slept on the floor. "Actually, I didn't sleep very much," Hardy said.

"It was better than sleeping in the car," said Rachel Bischoff, 11, a fifth-grader, who was in Hardy's car.

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