Blizzard of 2011

Looking North

Looking South

View from our backdoor, had to shovel a path for Toby

The past couple of days have been crazy around here...The Blizzard of 2011! We started hearing the possibility of snow over the week-end. We then started hearing how much snow we were going to get. Growing up in Illinois, I was used to the idea of being hit hard with snow, so I just rolled with the information. After Helen left for school Monday morning I ran to the grocery store to pick up bread, milk, and eggs. That afternoon I received a text from my neighbor asking if my cabinets were stocked with food, and if I had enough milk to last a couple of days. That was the first I had heard of a blizzard heading our way. I made sure we had what we needed and then got the house cleaned up knowing most of my time would be spent outside getting the snow taken care of. Monday afternoon and Tuesday we went about the day as usual. It is Catholic Schools week at the kid's school so there were events planned for everyday. Tuesday morning was a carnival that I helped at, and then in the afternoon the whole school went roller skating. It was there that I received the call from Helen's teacher, they would be getting out of school an hour early due to the weather changing. Once school was let out, I called the place where Ted has swimming lessons to see if they were still having them, yes, he still had class. He was the only one out of eight kids that showed up. He had a private lesson, with two teachers that night. The club is right on Lake Michigan, so when we left, we were almost blown away! The blizzard was at the beginning stages, windy, snowy, and cold. We snuggled in for the night, watched movies, and watched the storm. We could not see the houses across the street from us, it was very creepy. We woke up to white...everywhere! I got a text from my neighbor telling me to meet them outside, it was time to shovel everyone out. Thank God for great neighbors, we worked together as a team and got everyone shoveled out. I can't believe all the snow, it was a bit overwhelming at first. It took us about five hours to get all the work done. It would have been much quicker if my riding snow blower would have worked. We put chains on the tires, but come to find out, I need to put snow tires on the beast! It kept getting stuck, the tires would just spin, regardless of how much weight was on the machine. One of these days I'll get it working.

The kids had another day off from school because it took so long for the plows to clean up the streets. The school district also needed an extra day to get the parking lots and front walks at the schools cleared. The kids missed trivia day today at school, they were looking forward to that. Tomorrow is the eighth grade vs. faculty basketball game, they will be at school for that one. Then it's already the week-end. I'm having Helen's birthday party Saturday, her actual birthday is Sunday. She will be eleven...where does the time go? Since it's the Super Bowl, I decided to have the party the day before. She is already excited and keeps asking me who is going to come to her party. I told her we would have to wait and see since the weather has been so bad. I don't know who will make the drive, and who won't.

Until next time-

Take Care,

Sue