Winter Wonderland

February 1st began with warnings and a lot of anticipation as everyone was buzzing about a winter storm coming. I admit...I've lived in Chicago now for over 8 years and I've seen storms. I've seen snow. We've had school cancelled for just a few inches and I was doubting the extremity of this storm system. Never have I seen a snow storm that dumped this much since I was a child. Between 2pm on Tuesday and 9am on Wednesday, we received nearly 2 feet of snow. The wind was unbelievable. We have drifts 4 feet high! This was my view out of my front windows. Notice the buried fire hydrant. We had an untouched blanket of snow as far as the eye could see. No one even started shoveling near us until after 8:00am.

Evan and Carter are here to show how high it was on our deck. I have a similar picture from Elko when I was about their age crouching in my doorway with a drift over a foot above the door.

Snow tried to sneak into our garage.

This was the boys' first task. Make a path out the door and then clear off the trampoline. Our poor net was so heavy with snow, it nearly touched the snow covered ground beneath it. I think they're taking a break--even though they've hardly started. None of us anticipated the weight of the snow.

This is what greeted Steve. Ground zero. We were lucky to have the drifts carry some of the snow away from our garage door. Our neighbors, on the other hand, received what was taken from us.

A shot of our neighborhood--covered and untouched. Beautiful, really.

By 10 am, everyone was outside trying to dig each other out. It was great seeing so many neighbors on one day. The hibernation factor is definitely at play during January - March.

Carter was taking his turn with Steve. Note the knee high wall o' snow.

Braxton helped our neighbor.
We all helped our neighbor on our other side, who we found out has stage 4 kidney cancer. I'm so glad we could help them.
Luckily, one neighbor 3 doors down came to help with his snowblower. He mainly did the last quarter of our driveways and our sidewalks. What a gentleman! He definitely deserves a plate of cookies!

Emma couldn't wait to get out and play, but Lizzie was very hesitant. She enjoyed watching Emma climb our drifts up to our kitchen window. When Emma made it look fun and I said I was going out, she followed.

The girls went next door to play with their cute friend.

It didn't last long. Lizzie's little legs just weren't long enough to maneuver through the deep snow, and she kept falling. By the time she got to me, her hands were frozen, her nose was running, and her sobs were getting louder and louder. So, they went swimming in my tub. :)



The smiles returned!

This is now our view from our driveway to the south. Our plow didn't come until 4pm. So, we had to go back out and shovel the wall of snow it had pushed back onto our driveway. It only came one time through, leaving 1 car width plowed. It wasn't until after 10pm that it came back to finish the job. So, this morning in -12 degrees, Steve and the boys got to shovel another wall of snow pushed back onto our driveway. School was cancelled for 2 days, which meant movies, games, puzzles, big breakfasts, s'mores at the fireplace, hot chocolate, reading, and hanging out. Snow days are fun, but all of us are sore today. I think I'm ready for spring to come. I just saw that there's a chance of more snow this weekend followed by single digit temperatures. Seriously? I think the groundhog is full of it.