the hardest snow day yet!

yesterday was by far the worst day of snowmageddon!  the weather predictions have been very off and we expected to get rain and not snow.  well overnight we continued to get snow and freezing rain on monday night.  the accumulation of snow and ice on the trees was putting lots of stress on the branches and trees and branches were falling all night long leaving many people without power.  well around 10am we lost power, and it wasn't until a little later than jarad went outside to check on the roads and our driveway only to find the reason our power was out was because a large tree at the bottom of our driveway had fallen and was blocking the entire road and brought down the power lines!  a car had also parked down below and it was so lucky that it only the branches were touching it and it didn't get smushed!  we were without power for almost 12 hours and then the snow started up again around 1pm and kept going strong until about 4!!!  our neighbors came up to the house since they don't have a generator and brought beer and wine and we hung out in the afternoon and i made some turkey tacos in the crock pot.  it was close to 9pm when the power came back on!  there was a point when we didn't know when the power would return and were trying to figure out how long our propane and gas would last to keep the generator going.  jarad shoveled the driveway but could still not get out easily and he siphoned gas from the lawn mower.  OMG i swear it was survival mode yesterday!

the generator has been one of the best purchases we made!  it makes having no power with kids a little less inconvenient.  we are unable to use the stove/oven and the heater doesn't work on it either, but we CAN use the microwave and toaster oven to cook and jarad has mastered making blazing fires in our wood burning fire place!  and we have a few space heaters as well, but i only use it in ryder's room.

as of this morning (wednesday) jarad got ready for work to go in the office, but he is unable to get out of the driveway and our street has been plowed and the snow build up from the plow is at the bottom of our driveway so it is a wall of snow that makes it hard to get through even in our new ride (thank you daddy for your car!).  if our neighbors tractor will start he will try to help jarad get out.  side note, my dad recently got a new car and we had his old one shipped up here.  it has 4 wheel drive, and towing capabilities!  it could not have arrived at a better time!  it came last saturday and because of it we were able to get out a few times during the snow storm.

leaning snowman

this was from monday, we got about 2 feet total!!!

big red!!!

icicles!!!

wilfred staying cozy!

i think over the next week we will get snow showers off and on, but for today i think we are in the clear.  hopefully it will warm up a bit and melt this snow and snow and ice off of the trees.  it has been a week since i have left the house and things are getting a bit crunchy over here.  we are all feeling it!  jarad says that if it is safe we will all make it out today so we can get out of the house.

i keep telling jarad that if it was just him and i it wouldn't be so bad.  we would have movie marathons, i could cook and clean and organize, i would craft, he would work on his hobby stuff, take naps, etc.  but with kids it is a whole story.  OHHHHH and did i mention there is a cougar in our area?  it killed 3 alpacas at a farm about a mile away.  a couple of weeks ago i was wishing for a snow day, but be careful what you wish for, i was not prepared for a snow week!  even bowie says "i'm over it"