Our First Snow Storm

I didn't really know what to expect when the news forecasters predicted an actual snow storm. Phillip decided that since a snow storm was predicted, we would need to rake the lawn again so as to not muck up our beautiful snow with brown leaves. I think perhaps we were the only people preparing in this manner. I'm sure lots of people were purchasing the last spark plug or whatever at Home Depot. Much like hurricane preparation on the coast...I don't know why I need this, but since the store still has some, we'd better get some! So Phillip was out raking leaves in the dark on Wednesday night, and I finished them up during the day on Friday. And we decided to do without the spark plugs and Spam! :-)

I've been through a number of storms before. Numerous too-many-to-count thunder and lightning storms and of course hurricanes. Regardless, we were pretty excited to experience a snow storm. The storm was to move in our area late Friday night/early Saturday morning. So when we would wake up on Saturday, we would be pretty much in the thick of it.

So Saturday morning, I woke up around 8:30 and all was very, very quiet. So I figured the weather people were going to be eating their words in the next newscast. I went back to sleep for another 45 minutes or so and when I woke up, all was still quiet. On the walk back from the bathroom, I looked out the back window and...who knew??? It was snowing like crazy! The snow was already deeper than our first snow. It was very gently, silently falling. Big flakes of it!

Now when I think of storms I don't think of peace and quiet, gentle precipitation, you-don't-even-know-it's-there-til-you-look-out-the-window type of storm. Storms, where I come from are loud, whooshing, sometimes screaming wind, rain pelting the roof, terrible cracks of thunder and lightning type storms in which I am usually praying that the lightning will go away soon and I'm waking up Phillip (and my parents when I was a girl) because I am so afraid.

This storm reminded me of the Old Testament Bible story where Elijah goes up to the Mountain to find God. There was an earthquake, a terrible wind and fire, but God wasn't in any of those. Instead, God spoke in a soft whisper. That's what this storm reminded me of...I was expecting howling wind, possibly hail, or pelting rain. Instead I got a soft whisper. It was really coming down, but it was so, so silent!

We got up and of course had to go right out in it and check everything out. The snow was so pristine and perfect! It was almost a shame to walk in it! The street was entirely covered, and you could hardly tell the sidewalk from the street. When cars did come, you couldn't really hear them because the snow muffled all the sounds. It was so peaceful!

This is how it looked on the street when we began our walk!

This was shortly after Phillip nailed me with a snowball. Or before...I don't really know. There were quite a few snowballs lobbed between us.

But as with everything else, all was not perfect with the world...When we made our way up to the main street near our house (Harrison Ave), this gross, disgusting mess is what we found!

The picture doesn't even begin to capture how yucky this was. When they put the salt on the roadways, it turns everything into a slushy, dirty mess which gets on your car, your clothes if you happen to brush the bottom of the door area when you get out of the car, on your shoes, and ultimately in the house from your shoes. Since this was too disgusting a mess to face first thing in the morning, we turned back to our street, where fortunately everything still looked pristine.

It was beginning to sprinkle, as in freezing rain, so we went in to eat breakfast. We saw on the news that the freezing rain was to continue and would melt the snow, so we figured we needed to hurry up and get out there for some snow play! And the rain continued to fall. And we got soaked! Phillip shoveled the snow from the driveway and packed it on the steps in our back yard to sled down. Here he is trying it out! He looks like the Silver Surfer in the Fantastic Four movie!

I went down, went a bit sideways because sleds are VERY hard to steer, and hit a rock wall. It nearly knocked the wind out of me! I am still very sore from that little spill. I suspect my hip will be bruised from that one. Phillip said it's because I'm old. And I'd better not go around and break my hip. It must be true...a spill like that wouldn't have slowed me down a bit when I was younger. WHEN DID THIS HAPPEN TO ME????

We decided to try building a snowman. Snowmen are apparently much harder to build in real snow than televison snow men in made for television snow. I have a whole new respect for Calvin from Calvin and Hobbes for his snowmen in various gruesome poses! Phillip couldn't make the three ball high snowman work. Not even a one-ball high snowman! So he had to take a page from Calvin's book and make our snowman rising out of the ground. Morgan says he looks like Budda. With awesome pectorals? I don't know. Mom and Dad's church has Buff Jesus. We have Buff Budda in our backyard. And No, Dad...Not Buff the Stuff Bagwell. Buff Budda. Here is the finished product.

At this point, it was still freezing raining, and our clothes were soaked through. My water resistant coat and gloves were soaking wet and it was time to go in for a nice hearty lunch. About this time, Morgan finally made her way out of bed and went out with Archie. They built a snowman too, but I didn't get a picture, because my outside clothes were entirely too wet to put back on. Plus the rain was coming down a bit harder. Phillip made a nice fire in the fireplace where we were able to dry everything out. It rained for the rest of the day, but some of the snow is still there. Presently, as I write this (at 4:30 am because I woke up because my hip hurts), the rain has turned to snow again, so we'll see what tomorrow (or today?) brings. Hopefully some more snow will fall, enough that we can sled. I'll try to be more careful.

Oh yes...I also wanted to include this...Archie got his bunk bed on Friday morning! He sleeps on the top bunk (of course). However, he did climb into our bed Friday night at some point during the night saying he was cold. But he wasn't cold. It turns out, after talking to him Saturday morning, he had nightmares about falling out of the top bunk and got scared! So far this evening, he's still in the top bunk, hopefully without the nightmares!

The bottom bunk is a full sized, so we can now have overnight company without sticking folks on the crappy couch bed! Archie has already decided that Mimee and Pawpaw can sleep on the bottom bunk, with Archie on the top, and Granny on the fold-out chair in his room. I'll bet Granny will be REALLY looking forward to that! Phillip and Archie had the first Jamma Party in it on Friday night. Here they are watching Scooby Doo on the laptop: