Snow covered and hurting

Starting off...Look, new banner. It isn't quite what I wanted, but I'm working with a new program and I'm not real used to it yet. Therefore, this is what you get for this month.
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Last night, as we were watching tv, local schools were canceled for today. The weather men said that we were going to get 12-14 inches. I rolled my eyes. I've seen this song and dance before. It's the end of the world, we're all gunna die, and in the morning nothing. All that hoarding food, water, and stocking up on flashlight batteries for nothing.

Sure I shoveled the driveway three times yesterday, but it was only like an inch or two each time. The girls played in the snow and were thrilled.

Look, you can still see some of the leaves poking through.

At 4 this morning, Andy got up to shovel, not sure how much he would see when he opened the garage. I told him that if it was as bad as they had said it would be to let me know and I'd be out to help him. I was completely ready to go back to sleep until I received a text from Andy asking me to come help him.

I got dressed, bundled up, and headed outside to aid my hubby. Mind you it was 4 in the morning and I'm not a morning person what-so-ever. See how much I love him? I walked towards the front of the garage and once I saw the snow all I could say was "Holy Crap!" There was over a foot of snow covering the entire driveway.

We worked our way along shoveling the heavy, packy snow watching as other people kept getting stuck all around us. Snow was still coming down and the wind made it twice as fun to shovel because as you just tossed snow off to the side it would blow back at you giving you a cold face full of snow. We finished the one side of the driveway and saw that the snow at the road was closer to two feet deep. There was no way that Andy's little car was going to make it through the snow. And if he did get stuck I figured that he wouldn't be able to get his driver side door open and I wasn't looking forward to having to go push him either. Hello...early morning and deep snow, my name is Paula.

Yes, I am that sad person that at 4 in the morning took pictures.

It is at this time that my wonderful husband decided to stay home and I headed back up to bed. We spent the morning sleeping in, relaxing, and around noon we headed outside with the girls fully bundled up to shovel more. I even duct taped the girls jacket to their gloves and snow pants to boots to keep snow out. It worked...and they stayed warmer.

I duct taped my children today. My day is now complete.

Funny side story... Cassie went crawling into the snow, her hand sunk to the bottom of the snow and her face was inches from top of snow. She just looked at me like, 'now what?'. Kalli went to walk into the snow, got one leg in and it sank. She then called for me because she was stuck and couldn't get out. I did help, once I stopped laughing.

My poor boing boing tree...

There was even more snow to be shoveled now. On the side that we hadn't shoveled the first time there was close to 20 inches. We shoveled to the end of the driveway and then waited. We knew that the evil plow driver would be by and would block us in at some point. It made me want to cry just thinking about it.

In the meantime we headed inside and had hot chocolate, lunch, and relaxed in the warmth for a while. The girls and I were going to start decorating their gingerbread house when we saw the plow go by. Andy went out to start hacking away at the wall at the end of the driveway and after I finished with the girls I headed out to help...again.

Yeah gingerbread house!

Not sure if you've gotten this by now, but I'm done with snow. I think we've gotten enough to last us this month at least. Also, a snow blower now tops our "what to do with our tax money" list. Sad, I know....but after moving that much snow Andy and I are feeling about 80 years old. And this is only the first snow storm of the year. Oy-vey!

I got a hippo for Christmas and the snow is now covering my poor hippo.

We did have one close to casualty today. We didn't notice it until we were headed in for lunch. Just to show how windy it really got. Our grill which was up on our patio/stoop/cement thing had fallen off and was laying in the snow. Hopefully it still works. The lid, shelf, and grates had all fallen out of the grill itself and because it still had a full tank of propane on it, it took Andy and myself to lift it back up onto the porch. After I got a picture, of course.

This leaves me one question. Is hibernating until spring an option? Because I choose that.