Snowmageddon 2016

Well, we survived! Were you worried? I guess if you follow me on Facebook, you'll already know that we made it through the snow storm. If not, (WHY NOT!?!) here's your announcement!

Here in the Shenandoah Valley we got about 25 inches on snow within a two day period. Most everything was shut down Friday through Monday, with school struggling to get back to their regular schedules even today. My kids were already out Monday and Tuesday for Teacher Workdays, and they had delays yesterday and today. Most of the roads look clear, but there's a lot of melting going on during the day and then re-freezing at night. Many area sidewalks are still covered and the city is having to fill dump trucks with snow and move it to other locations because there's just not enough room to pile it all up where it fell!

Before the snow got started, my mom recommended that I park my van in the yard. Most of the houses in my neighborhood do not have driveways or garages, so plowing the streets is quite a problem. I wanted to make it as easy as possible for the city to clear the snow, so feeling a bit foolish I drove my van up into the front yard and parked it on the sidewalk.

I wanted to set up my phone or iPad to take a time lapse video of the snow falling, but then I'd be without my phone and iPad while snowed in with the children. That sounded like a recipe for disaster, so instead I set my alarm to take a photo every 30 minutes. That messed with my potential for a nap, but us bloggers have to make sacrifices for our readers, you know?!

We spent a good deal of time inside: reading books, watching Netflix, plugged into screens playing games, etc. It's not how we typically spend our weekends, but this wasn't really a typical weekend.

After the snow stopped falling the kids spent some time outside playing in it. I'm not a big fan of the cold, so I was thankful that they are old enough to play in the yard by themselves. I'm also thankful that Benjamin has a lower tolerance for the cold and cut his playtime short to come inside and snuggle under a blanket with mommy.

By Sunday, I was getting a bit of cabin fever, so I went out to dig around the fire hydrant and my van. Two neighbors across the street ended up coming over to help and we got the whole van dug out in about two hours.

Monday we called up a friend of Frances' and went out to eat at Chick-Fil-A. For being the only restaurant in town with an indoor playground, they were not as busy as I had anticipated. The kids got a chance to eat and play and I got to get out of the house for a bit.





Tuesday was mostly clear and we spent the day playing outside, cleaning inside, and running errands. The kids went back to school yesterday (with a delay) and despite the huge banks of snow piled up around town, the Blizzard of 2016 is in the past. Here's to hoping that's our one significant snowfall for the season and we can move on to Spring!