February Blizzards

While we were on vacation, our home city got 28.5 inches of snow in a huge blizzard on Friday & Saturday. School was still cancelled on Monday. Monday afternoon, Jeff took the boys out to build a snowman. They were all pretty excited to build a snowman, along with a snow chair and snow bed.

Tuesday was a fairly normal day, except that we knew there would be another big storm coming on Wednesday. After going to the gym, I stopped at the grocery store to pick up a few things. Just as expected, the store was completely packed- even at 9:30am. I had to drive around for quite a while waiting for a parking spot. Here on the East coast, people go crazy the day before a storm- swarming the grocery stores and emptying the shelves. If you don’t get there soon enough, you’ll find the shelves empty and completely out of things like milk, eggs, bread, and meat. It’s a phenomenon we still laugh at even after 8 years. I hated going to the store with the crowds, but we had just gotten back from vacation the day before and needed a few basics. It was a good thing we were all stocked up and ready because the 2^nd blizzard was a doozy. We ended up getting another 16 inches on top of the 28.5 previous inches(which luckily had already started to melt a little). That put the total at 70 inches for the season, which broke the previous record of 65 total inches & we still have a few more weeks of winter; but I admit I wouldn’t be disappointed if we didn’t get any more snow! I think I’ve had my fill.

Jacob taking advantage of our indoor-time to teach Caleb & Matthew how to read.

The snow started to come down late Tuesday night, it didn’t look like much then, but it didn’t take too long before it was coming down hard & we had some pretty good white-out conditions. In fact, we had a thunder snowstorm! I don’t know that I’ve ever experienced thunder & lightening during a snowstorm. It was crazy.

Tuesday night, Jeff and I had a movie night after putting the kids to bed. He ended up getting not one, but two days off work since all surgeries were cancelled and the offices were closed. The mayor declared a state of emergency and almost everything in the city was shut-down, even the busses and public transportation.

On Wednesday, we spend most of the day inside just watching the snow come down. It didn’t stop until late that night. Jeff went out to check on our car and remove a huge branch that had fallen on it. The snow was so heavy and wet that it was making the trees bend clear over and even causing some trees and branches to break. Luckily there wasn’t any damage to our car.

The snowstorm/thunderstorm was fun to watch for a day, but on Thursday I was happy to see a beautiful blue sky. It’s funny how staring out a window at snowy gray skies for a long time, and being inside all day can make you feel a little stir crazy. I think everyone was excited to get out. We dug out our car, and of course the boys were able to get in some sledding on top of the huge mountains of snow that were all around.

Caleb & Jacob thinking they're pretty funny throwing snowballs at Daddy!

Jeff took these pictures so you can imagine how tall the snow piles were. A couple girls from our apartment complex gave them some old swim tubes that ended up being perfect for going down their hill; it was pretty entertaining to watch them. They had fun playing outside for almost 3 hours.

On Friday I figured everything would be back to normal, but they ended up canceling school again. Jeff had to go back into work, but the boys were home with me. It’s kind of funny to think about, but between our vacation, holidays, and snow days, Jacob will have only had school 1 day out of 12. When he finally goes back to school on the 16^th, he will have only been to school 3 days of the entire month. I’m kind of glad we’ve been able to have some fun days at home together! This has definitely been a memorable winter.