Snowed In

Well, the snow held off a week longer than the cousins from down south had hoped. It's probably a good thing, though, because on if the snow had been added to the already crazy roads from the Thanksgiving rush, it would have taken them 2 days to get home :P

The fluffy white stuff started coming down on Sunday, and I honestly don't think it's stopped for more than an hour since! It's been coming down pretty steady every day. The lake-effect snow warning was only until last night, but even today we're still getting hit. From our best estimation, there's a little over 2 feet out there. O, and we were listening to the radio today and the weatherman reported that there's a major storm (cause what we're in the middle of right now isn't a major storm???) coming in on Sunday and Monday that could drop about 2 more feet...2 + 2 =4, right? Yup, just checkin' : ) Oh I just love living close to Lake Erie ;P

Now of course, like most anything else, the snow has its pros and cons. The pros include the fact that It.Is.Gorgeous! It's the kind of snow that covers everything from rooftops to pine trees, weighing down the branches of the trees, which makes for a beautiful sight. Typically I enjoy sledding with the little kiddos outside, but with this much snow all at once, it's actually too deep to go sledding at this point; you just sink! It's quite humorous watching Ian try to walk through it- it's up to his waist :D

PINE TREES!

The back of our house...

Another pro of the snow is SNOW DAYS! Every Monday I've got to head up to one of the hospitals in Cleveland for clinicals. This past Monday I woke up at 5:20, like any other Monday morning, but then had to rush around to try and get out the door early because of the surprising amount of snow on the ground. Getting out the driveway was a challenge (our driveway is pretty long) but even worse were the unplowed roads. I got all the way to the highway (which should really only take me about 7 or 8 minutes) in about 25 minutes. That's when the fun started *note my sarcasm*! Because of accidents, we were all going about 15mph in the 65 zones...talk about frustrating! By the time I got into to the nearest exit after getting on the highway, I'd decided that it was time to head home...there was no way that I would be able to get to class anywhere near the set time. So, I went home, and was quite happy to find out that school was cancelled anyways! When I got home the kids were begging me to go out in the snow with them, so we decided to walk over to the neighbors to see if they wanted to go sledding with us. We just kinda assumed that because every other school was out, their Christian school would be too...but after trudging 20 minutes through the snow to get to their house, we discovered that the weren't home :( But we sledded on their hill anyways before going home. Ian was so funny; when we were on our way home, he stopped and sat down in a snow pile, looked up with a grin on his face and said "Why don't we just stop and make camp here for the night!"

The two biggest problems with the snow, especially this much snow at once, is the treacherous roads (we were pretty much stuck inside Monday and Tuesday) and having to clean it off my car.

this is what my car looked like this morning...

....even after I cleaned it off yesterday :\

I've learned that those ice scrapers with the brushes on them don't cut it...brooms work much better :P I've also learned that wearing boots that come above your knees don't help a whole lot when the snow is that deep!

All in all, the snow is pretty great, and I hope that I don't sound like I'm complaining about it. Despite the challenges that it presents, it's really pretty and I enjoy lazy days inside because of it :D