We are definitely SNOWED-OUT!!!

This post is for all of the friends and family who have called begging for pictures of the serious pounding we've gotten over the last week! Sorry it's taken me this long--I'm still a little bitter :o)

I got a call from a friend today asking me to verify the rumor that we've had 80 inches of snow--sounds like someone's been playing too much Telephone :o) Putting all rumors to rest, we haven't had THAT much, but it's starting to feel like we have! Here are the stats--in our particular neck of the woods, we saw 45+ inches fall in a matter of 8 days between 3 different storms:

1. Tuesday night (2/2) we got a 3-5 inch storm that got the boys out of school. I know, they tend to overreact when it comes to snow around here, but I've never been one to complain about it. My senior year of HS, there was a storm that got us out for 2 weeks. Everyone else had to tack on an extra 2 weeks to the end of the school year, but because we were seniors, we still graduated on time. It was a great year to be a senior!

Two boys who are happy to be out of school...

2. Friday (2/5) the weatherman warned us about a "blizzard of threatening proportions" (I kid you not, someone on the news really called it that), so I threw all the dirty laundry in black trash bags, yanked the kids out of school for an "appointment" and headed down to my parents, where Jeremy met us after work. We weren't about to get snowed in at home!!! By the time we got there, the snow was coming in pretty thick and I was glad we left when we did. The snow just kept coming for another 36 hours; we tried to play in it but without much success:

The snow was too deep even for the sled!

Bennett: "The snow makes you go too slow!"

Can you find Jer in my parents' backyard?

I called my mom the White Rabbit--with that coat on, you couldn't see her at all in the snow!

Even though the picture's blurry, doesn't everything look so pretty?

After it stopped snowing, the sun came out and we went out to inspect the scene. This is what we found:

I think the boys really thought they were in heaven...

Ethan: "This is awesome, Mom. I think I could stay here forever!"

On Monday, we braved the roads and headed home. Upon our arrival, we found that the maintenance crew had kindly plowed our parking spaces for us--unfortunately, they plowed all that snow right up into our front yard, so Jeremy had to hack his way through a 6-foot-high wall of snow just to get to the front door. In addition, the juniper trees that line our front doorway were so laden-down with heavy snow that they were literally bent in half--right in front of the door. So Jer took care of those too... my hero!

We came home to 32 inches of snow in our yard, snow drifts NOT included--this is our deck:

And this is my sweet husband who still has a smile on his face after shoveling snow (AGAIN) for literally 5 days straight--he really is a trooper:

So that takes the total up to 35+ inches in 5 days. And you thought that was the end of it??? Oh, no!

3. The third storm--a true blizzard--blasted its way into our area with 50-mile-an-hour winds and almost 0% visibility Tuesday night (2/9) and lasted till Wednesday afternoon. Unfortunately, we couldn't tell that it had stopped because the wind was blowing so hard that we didn't know where it was actually coming from! When all was said and done, an additional 8-10 inches found its way to our landscape. By then, we were all pretty sick and tired of snow, so we just hunkered down, made pretzels and watched The Ten Commandments :o) The scene outside actually made Moses' exile into Egypt sound warm and inviting... how sad is that!

Once the sun came out today, the boys decided to try playing in the snow again and had a MUCH better time:

Meanwhile, I took a little walk around the neighborhood to take some pictures:

Here is our house with the wall of snow starting to melt:

I told our neighbors to be REALLY careful walking out their front door:

And I managed to get totally stuck in the snow in the process. I stepped off the "beaten path" to get a picture and COULD NOT MOVE. I had Ethan take a picture of me before Bennett helped me out--hence the not-so-flattering shot :o)

Tomorrow will be one full week of no school, and the first time Jeremy's done a full day of work in as much time. I hinted in my last post how much our family cherishes quality time because we don't get that much of it--well, let's just say Someone has a sense of humor! We have truly enjoyed our time together--the boys have attended Mrs. Mom's School all week, complete with P.E. (as in, "Boys, get your snow clothes on and go play outside... now!), History lessons on Greek mythology to coordinate with Dad's reading "Percy Jackson & the Lightning Thief", Mad Math Minutes that literally make the entire family go mad, etc.--but I know each person in our house will agree that we are looking forward to getting back to our regularly-scheduled programming :o)

If we get another storm like they're calling for on Monday night, someone had better call our house and make sure we're all still alive... I can't guarantee anything!