Blizzard 2011

Our Story

I am not sure if anyone was really sure what to expect regarding the Blizzard of 2011!!!! We got 'wind' of the storm late last week (I think!?). We knew that the storm was supposed to hit us with a LOT of snow, possibly ice, and really low temps!!!! And they weren't LYIN'! We had school on Monday with a little bit of snow during the day. Later in the day/evening it started getting kind of bad out *but not blizzard conditions or anything. =) It was bad enough that my masters class got cancelled. YAY! My professor has to drive from out of town, as well as a few of the girls in class. So, anyway, once I found out I didn't have class, I decided to run to Walmart to get a few things. It was pretty comical the amount of people out...it was like people were really preparing for WEEKS or MONTHS of being trapped in their homes. I was early enough to get milk before they ran out and got one of the last 2 containers of regular eggs left. The rest were brown/organic. I just wanted them to make cookies---b/c I figured with some snow days, I might get in the mood to do some baking. =)

Tuesday morning arrives (no school!! Snow Day #1) and nothing yet. By about 10am, I was starting to get a little antsy with all of the anticipation!! And still nothing was happening yet. I decided that Ava and I would run out to Target to get diapers (aka---get out while I could!). By the time we checked out, it was SnOwING! We got home safely, but the snow was definitely coming down. The snow continued pretty much all day. I took a few photos throughout the day though none of the pictures really do this storm any justice.

Ava thought her puppy wanted to see the snow!!!!

It continued to snow and snow and snow and snow. I think there was one point where it did actually let up but that only lasted for a short while. Travis was at work all day (didn't miss a single day for Blizzard '11!). He got home around 4:00. At around 5pm, WE LOST POWER! It wasn't fun...but luckily it wasn't dark yet. I called the power company and they were aware of the outage and said that about 300 people were without power in our zip code and it was apparently due to a tree limb or something of that nature affecting the transformer. Thank goodness for laptops and cell phones! We still had a charge on those. My good friend Kim offered up their house since they still had power. We just weren't sure what to do because we knew it probably wouldn't be safe to drive over there especially as it got dark. In the meantime, Travis talked to a co-worker of his that has a 4x4 truck with a plow on it and he said he could come get us and take us wherever we needed to go.

Sure enough as he gets here, we see the Ameren truck on our street so we wait a few minutes. The truck leaves...still no power. So we make the decision to go ahead and go to Kim and Craig's. As we literally get to their neighborhood, we get a call from Ameren saying the power might be on and we call our neighbor who says that YES it is! Soooooo----we turn around and come home. Luckily, Travis' co-worker was a sport and didn't seem to mind at all! I think he was just having fun out there. It waas pretty freaky though...especially since we had a 1 1/2 year old in the backseat of a pickup truck with NO CAR SEAT. She was really cute though and seemed to enjoy the ride! I was afraid we might lose power again but we were in the clear! I just couldn't really imagine being without power with a little one and an older home with 1/2 of our windows being OLD! So glad it all worked out ok. I know others lost power for 24 hours!

We have a detached garage and a driveway that is on a slope so when I got home from Target, I couldn't get the van all the way up the driveway so I just parked halfway up. When Travis got home with my car, he just parked behind me. I was kind of like..."We are DUMB for not parking in the garage!!" but when you see the after pics, you might see why I'm glad that we didn't now!

Here is a pic of my the vehicles at around 11pm Tuesday night.

And my boots, of course!

I thought the design the snow made on the window was pretty cool! It wasn't that high though...LOL!

The AFTERMATH

See why I'm glad we didn't park in the garage??? We both have remote starters on our vehicles so we actually haven' t even been using the garage, as crazy as it might sound. (One of the reasons I can't wait to move!). It is not convenient at all to walk down the steps, out the back door around the house and through the driveway to get to the garage, so I'd much rather just park in the driveway and be close to the front door...now that I have a child. I HATE taking more than one trip out to the car or in! It really has been a pain but anyway, that is another story! Back to Snowmageddon!

It's pretty hard to see, but if you look closely, there are footprints where the road is supposed to be...and those belong to my husband. On Wednesday morning, he really needed to be at work so his friend with the plow came to pick him up but was afraid to dome down our street so he made it to the nearest crossing street and Travis had to hike it there (a total of about 3 houses...) but that was in tennis shoes. The poor guy doesn't even own a pair of snowboots!

Another view of the cars...

The huge drift next to our driveway by our neighbor's house...

I had to take Ava out in the snow of course. I mean, what kind of mom would I be if I didn't document this historical event!? Well, needless to say it took us longer to get snow gear ON than the amount of time we were actually outside. When I put her down, she kept saying, "mommy, mommy, mommy!!" Not to mention, it really was FREEZING! When we were walking back in, a HUGE gust of wind about took my breath away so I can only imagine what she thought! In this picture she is sitting on top of a huge drift.

Hat change...(had to dig it out of the van!)...still not a fan!

So, we decided to bring the snow inside where it's warm. I put some in a bowl and was trying to get Ava to take a bite but she still didn't really want to eat it. I think we'll try the snow ice cream I have seen most of my friends talking about on facebook. =) Sounds yummy! I don't think the snow is going anywhere anytime soon.

It's much more fun to play with the snow INSIDE!

We made a teeny tiny snowman. We tried adding sprinkles but once I packed the snow, it really was like ice!




Goofy girl!

Silly girl...this face was actually about the leftover cookie she noticed on her tray!









Looking out the kitchen window (and admiring her owl from her b'day party!)




Travis snowblowing the driveway!!! Thank goodness for a coworker that GAVE this to us a few years ago! We spent $80 this year having our neighbor fix it...well worth it, I'd say!




We had a lot of fun painting our nails, watching Dora, playing with baby dolls, reading books, watching Toy Story 3, making Valentine sugar cookies (eating said Valentines cookies), and filling out our Valentines. I also organized all of my mail, paid my bills, vacuumed (several times), did ALL the laundry and put it away (with the exception of the small load sitting next to me!), blogged,had a Valentine photo shoot with Miss A, made her Valentine photo card with my Creative Memories software, and even had a little time in there to relax! (You didn't see working out OR doing homework on that list did you?? I guess I'm more of a creature of habit than I realized. Oh well, my friend Becky said that none of the calories consumed on the snow days counted! So there!)

Since I could actually get out today, I took Ava to the sitter for a few hours while I went to lunch with friends Karen and Brooke, as well as got a manicure and shopped at Ann Taylor (be looking for a few more cute shirts from me...hehe)!

We thorougly enjoyed our 3 snow days!!! But I guess it's back to work tomorrow (but hey, at least it's Friday)! Looking like our last day of school will be June 3 or 4!? Boo! But oh well! We still get our week long spring break and that is always a break I look forward to. This year I'm hoping it is used getting our house on the market so maybe next year we can actually go somewhere.

And in the words of my hubby..."And it's not like you aren't off all summer!"

I guess he's right!