The Storm of the Century

Winter is definitely here! After a tiny snowfall back in October that melted in a couple of hours, we haven't had one flake until a few days ago. The snow started Sunday night, and on Monday we just had a few inches. After preschool on Monday I tried to get the snow blower started, but didn't have any luck (which was just what I expected), so I shoveled with a little help from the boys. Drew liked it for a while, but then he kept falling down and it wasn't as much fun.

Monday night and Tuesday morning all the newscasters started talking about "the storm of the century" coming our way, and sure enough, we got hit pretty hard. I don't know if I'd call it the storm of the century, but it's not been good. Zach still had school Tuesday, but Tuesday afternoon the snow really started to pick up. Nonetheless, the boys and I got an opportunity Tuesday after preschool to get out and enjoy the 6-8 inches of snow that had already fallen.

Zach and I both took a turn going down the slide, which was pretty darn fun, if you ask me. It's a fast slide on a dry day, but add snow to it, and you fly down it.

Mike got home from work early, so we decided to have our neighbors Brad, Molly, and Cooper over for homemade pizza. Zach greeted them at the door with his new spy glasses (you can see both in front of you and behind you with these bad boys on) and a mustache. These were courtesy of Grandma Cynthia's sister Carol, who always sends the boys really neat Christmas presents.

Here's the group enjoying the pizza. I'm always a little nervous making homemade pizza for guests for the first time, but my parents' recipe generally pleases everyone, or else people just lie to me about it tasting good, which is fine withe me!

After dinner we watched the Charlie Brown Christmas special on T.V. and played around. Here's Drew, Zach, and Cooper posing quite nicely for me.

I didn't realize Foudy got in on the posing action until I downloaded these pictures. She's pretty cute sporting Brad's bright orange hat.

When we went to bed around 11:00, the snow was still steadily falling. I woke up around 3 a.m. to hear the wind blowing like crazy, and a good night's sleep was wishful thinking after that. The wind just would not quit. We knew everything was already canceled for today, so there was no reason to get up early, thankfully.

Mike went outside at about 8:30 to start the snow blowing so he could head out to a meeting with his business partners. It's hard to get pictures that really do it justice, but here's the drift that was against our garage door when Mike opened it. It was probably 2.5-3 feet high.

Mike was out there with the snow blower (apparently it needed gas, which explains why it didn't start for me) long enough to get the whole driveway above the sidewalk cleared and enough of it below the sidewalk for his car to get through. Although travel was not advised on any roads, he still went to his meeting (against my wishes!), and got there safely, though it was slow going because the wind was blowing so much that visibility was quite poor.

While Mike was gone the boys and I got some good playing in, including some train action inside this empty diaper box. Gotta love kids' imaginations!

Mike thankfully made it back home from his meeting safely, and after we got the kids down for their naps, he headed out to do some more snow-clearing. The tallest drifts on our property were probably about 4 feet high. Some of our neighbors easily have 5 feet high drifts, so I guess we were lucky. While Mike was out front I went in the back to clear the deck off so the dogs don't have to walk through tons of snow every time they go in and out. That was my first time venturing out today, and boy, was it COLD! That wind was nasty, so I was very thankful for my warm house and my winter clothes.

When I finished in the back, I went to the front to clear off a bit of the front porch and the steps leading up to it. I am expecting a few deliveries any day now, so I figured I should make it easier for those delivery men.

Here you can sort of see how high the drift was that went across our front walkway.

Here's also some video where you can see how hard our little snow blower is working. Thank goodness we have it, though, because a 3-car driveway and 4 foot drifts would be a major pain to shovel! Brad and Molly do not have a snow blower, and they had drifts at least as big as ours, so in this video you also see Mike with our snow blower, our new neighbor Mike with his huge snow blower, and Brad with his shovel working at Brad and Molly's house. Notice the difference between how our snow blower sort of spits snow and how the other Mike's snow blower totally throws it. Mike and I agreed that after that scene, we definitely have snow blower envy.

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

This is what Mike looked like when he came in. The little ice crystals were melting at this point.

Everything is already canceled for tomorrow, which I find interesting because the snow has really stopped at this point, I think. We were supposed to have about 15-16 inches when it was all said and done, but I haven't heard any totals since earlier this morning. Tonight it's supposed to get really cold, with actual temps below zero, which means with wind chills, it will be a very bad night to be outside. I'm hoping it warms up a little soon so we can play outside and go sledding, but it might be a few days before that happens. We're supposed to get together with some friends tomorrow, so at least we won't be stuck in our house again. Zach came downstairs a little bit ago (he was supposed to be asleep) and said, "Mom, my brain just had this really good sense, and I thought, 'What if the car can't go tomorrow because it's so cold?'" I told him I thought we'd work it out, and he was very proud of the "good sense" his brain just had. Then he said, "Well, if our car won't work, we'll just use our feet!" and I had the vision of us in our van, using our feet like the Flinstones. I hope that doesn't happen!