Blizzard of 2011

I live in an area that doesn't get much snow normally. We get lots of ice storms, but are lucky if we get one light snow of an inch or two a year that is usually gone the next day. Yes, we have had some occassions where we've gotten more, but its never a guarantee. Sometimes it arrives in December, sometimes it arrives in March. Very unpredicable snow here when it comes. Well, we received our biggest snow yet. Fourteen inches at my house, but up to 22 inches in nearby towns. The whole country, almost, has been hit by this storm, but its especially hard to deal with when u live in an area that isn't accustomed to getting much snow and therefore does not have enough snow removal equipment or qualified personnel to drive the few plows they do have. That said, we are experiencing a big snow storm and really bad outdoor conditions. Virtually all flights have been cancelled, lots of businesses are closed or operating on small staffs (because not many people can get out). If you don't drive a 4WD vehicle you might as well stay home because you aren't getting far. Even with a 4wheel drive vehicle, its pretty dicey out there because the roads are so bad since we don't have the equipment or qualified drivers to clear them properly.
We live in a small town on the outskirts of a city. The storm dropped the snow Monday night. Its now Thursday and we have only ventured out twice. Last night to eat at a local restaurant that is only about 3 miles from our house, and tonight to go to another restaurant that is a little farther away. Yikes the highway was a mess (slid around on the 'plowed' area and got my teeth jiggled out of my head on the bumpy non-plowed area). Unfortunately tonight this restaurant was closed so we headed to Walmart to return some Redboxes and grab some milk.
Wow.
I have never seen a Walmart with so many empty shelves. Evidently this storm is preventing delivery trucks from making it to the store. There was not a single egg in the case. Only a few cartons of butter. A few tubes of refrigerated breads/rolls. Fortunately for me, not many people in my town buy the organic milk I buy, so I was able to buy lots, but all the non-organic milk was virtually gone. Only a few gallons of juice left. No bakery breads. No bananas. Most of the bread was gone. Lots of empty chip shelves. The freezers seemed about half full.



no chips left on this aisle stand




no bread here




the only bananas available are those mini ones in the bag

Besides the food not being delivered, gas is also not making it here. No delivery trucks, means no gas at several of our local gas stations! This is really crazy, hopefully it won't last too long.

The day after the snow came Dan spend 5 hours clearing our driveway with our tractor. Now remember this tractor is really intended for moving dirt, not snow! Here is a bird's eye view of him working on it. We told our kids to enjoy these snowbanks because this may be the only time in their childhood that we ever have true snowbanks along our drive!

 The kids, especially W have LOVED going out in the snow. Here she is running out into the yard dragging our dog Lucy on a leash behind her. Lucy has had lots of fun too, racing around the yard (or rather, hopping through the snow like a rabbit  ha ha) with the girls chasing her.



Snow angel time




The first day of snow. Its virtually a white out with the  wind and snow still coming down. Those are the trees in our front yard about 250 feet from my front door.

  While being housebound (obviously school has been cancelled since Tuesday) we have had lots of things to keep us busy besides playing in the snow. One of which is shown here in this picture... Science Experiments! T received a science experiment kit as a gift from her aunt and uncle and she has had a ball creating crystals, exploding volcanoes, liquids that change color, and all kinds of fun stuff. W has been her 'assistant' and 'student' during this activity. In fact, T made a quiz for W regarding acids and bases after one of the experiments, and W actually got all the questions right!  A+ for her!

Besides science fun, we have also been baking and playing games like memory, bingo, and candyland. Tomorrow more games will be added to our list I'm sure. We've also watched a few movies and gotten some house cleaning done. I even did some touch up painting in our add-on. The best part though has been watching the girls play together. I laid on T's bed for about 30 minutes last night just watching the two of them play Barbies and horses and listening to them in their make-believe conversations and story-lines. So creative and so cute. I love watching them being kids and using their minds for free play instead of being locked into the confines of a computer game. I did let them play some Webkinz and funbrain.com on the computer, but only for about 30minutes :)  When I was on the treadmill (my workout room has a huge 'window' into the kids' playroom so I can see them playing when I'm working out) I was watching W playing school with her stuffed animals. It was so cute. She had them all lined up in chairs and she sat at a desk facing them with her little chalkboard set up right next to her. It was so adorable. I love watching them play!
So that's what we've been doing. We have several more days of this I'm sure. Tomorrow (Friday) school is also cancelled and based on the weather report it will be cold here for another week, so not much melting will occur. Therefore, the roads may not get cleared any time soon. If they don't I'm sure we'll have some snow days off school next week as well. Thankfully our power has remained on and I do have a full pantry and freezer, so about the only thing we may run out of is fresh veggies, but I could always use frozen or canned ones if need be. Therefore, even though this storm has virtually halted our small town (and the neighboring city), we will be fine and all is well. Lots of fun is still to come :)