THIS POST NEEDS TO BE IN ALL-CAPS, BECAUSE THIS WAS SOME CRAZY SNOW. Okay, that's annoying. Anyway, we heard that snow was coming, but we doubted that it would be as much as they predicted. I did go grocery shopping, though. I sent Daniel to a local hardware store to try to find fuses to fix our pre-lit tree that wasn't working, and he figured he might as well pick up a snow shovel while he was there. He said there was a guy who was trying to buy the last snow shovel, and he asked the salesman how much it was. The salesman, without batting an eye, said, "Seventy-two dollars and fifty cents." And the man was going to buy it!" :)
I was supposed to host a cookie exchange Friday night, and two of the ladies called en route to say they were giving up. They were driving a Suburban, so they were okay, but the other drivers on the road were causing problems. They headed home. Only one lady who lives 5 minutes away was able to make it, but I sent her home soon after because it was coming down fast. We have lots of cookies left. :) On Saturday we awoke to a true winter wonderland and it was still snowing!
I have never been so thankful for my safe family, a warm house, (unlike last year where we froze in our rental house that leaked like a sieve!) plenty of food, cookies, and Christmas music. Daniel and the kids went out to attempt sledding, but it was too soft for the sleds. So they played awhile and the two older girls built snow caves in the backyard. I made bread inside which we had with soup for lunch. We kept staring in disbelief at the amount of snow piling up. We got the news that church would be cancelled the next day but we were hopeful that we could go to the evening service. Yeah...not so much. The roads were still incredibly bad. We didn't even plan to shovel our driveway, (especially after Daniel already helped three neighbors shovel theirs!) but then we remembered that we ought to get the garbage can out in case the garbagemen came by on Monday. It's 9:00 Monday, and they're still not here. Hm. Daniel tried to go to Petersburg today (Ft. Lee) but he turned around after barely making it up a hill on the major road outside our neighborhood. We're staying put another day. This is a really nice, unexpected break in the busyness of the season.
Without further ado, here are pictures... The following pictures are from Saturday:
Roscoe contemplates the horror that has become his life. He hates rain; he detests snow. And he has to go out in THAT? This is the picture out the garage door.
Daniel braves the snow to take Roscoe out. I laughed my evil laugh while wearing fleece socks and sipping coffee. Poor guy. 
See the snow drift to the right? 
Daniel wanted to measure the snow in a level place in the backyard. This was on Saturday while it was STILL SNOWING. Yikes.
Snow in the backyard.
Snow almost covering Daniel's car out front.
It's still coming down hard!
Shiloh and Cora stayed out the longest - their feet were FROZEN.
That's Abigail, in case you can't tell. I think Nathaniel was already inside by this point, so I didn't get a picture of him.
This was the beginning of the snow cave.
Shiloh is digging it out.
Shiloh and Cora can both fit! They were pretending to take shelter in the midst of a storm. "Mommy, the snow will keep us insulated. We'll be okay!"
They made the snow cave in our side yard where the drifts were the biggest.
The following pictures are from Sunday when the sun came out. Notice the difference in the amount of snow up to the fence?
Daniel's car was practically buried. When the snowplow came by, it had to go around Daniel's car, which meant it left an additional 7 feet of snow that we had to shovel in order to get to the street. My arms hurt today.
Cuddles is investigating the snow. Daniel dumped her in it, and then Cora came to the rescue, protesting, "Daddy!! What are you doing to my kitty??!"
Photographic evidence of the wall of snow we had to create. Shiloh helped until I noticed her rubbing her back in pain. I ordered her back inside to watch "Sound of Music" with the others. She said this morning, "My bum hurts!" :)
All shoveled out - or at least enough to get the van out.
We had to shovel a parthway for the mailman. You can see how far out into the street the snow came.
Below are some videos from the day. Because we don't have a deck yet and our cheap builders didn't provide us with stairs from our sliding glass door down to the ground, (seriously? isn't that crazy?) we have a large drop from our door to the ground. (They put up a safety rail for us, which we took down. But if they can put up a safety rail, couldn't they put in a couple of stairs?) Anyway, back to the video. Daniel is demonstrating the proper exit procedures for jumping out of an airplane. The girls are clueless and just do what they're told. The boys have this procedure down and can recite all the steps - they practice it when they exit the bathtub. :)
The following videos were taken while sledding. I should have taken a video of just how steep the hill is in our neighborhood and how much effort it took to get to the top to create a sled run. Needless to say, I got my workout for the day (and that was before the shoveling!). Poor Nathaniel had to be helped to the top, but once he was there, he had a great time sledding down!
Long after Abigail, Nathaniel, and Jackson had given up because they were cold, the other three stayed out and had a grand time. I heard that Adah went down just on her belly, without the sled!
Before it snows again, I NEED snowpants for the kids. They could have stayed out much longer if their pants hadn't gotten so wet (and tights and sweatpants underneath). Anybody have any hand-me-downs? :)
The following videos better capture what a truly great sledding hill there is in our neighborhood. It's an eyesore the rest of the year because there are no trees in the common area, but when there is a snow like this, it's all worth it for the sled runs. We made one of the runs early Saturday morning, and then the person who actually owns the house at the top of the hill made several more so the kids could race. He even went to the store to buy more sleds so that everyone would have one! :)
