The Big One...

First off, as all four of my blog readers know, I am not usually a "real time" blogger. My posts are always at least a few days behind. And, true to form, I still have Christmas and Caroline's birthday, plus the snow from a couple of weeks ago to make up for, but I decided to break from tradition and reward those four people who care about our lives with pictures from today!

It's fairly safe to say that this will be "the big one" of the year. More than five or six inches at a time is actually a bit unusual for central Indiana. But every now and then, we get lucky. It all started a couple of days ago, with a promise from forecasters for 4-6 inches. Monday night I headed to the grocery to stock up on snacks and fun food...oh, and caffeine...and the forecast changed and shifted the heavier snowfall south of us. Bummer. That scenario played itself out about a dozen times last winter.

The first wave on Monday night was supposed to bring almost two inches. We barely got a dusting. Then yesterday morning I got a text message from Mindy saying that she'd heard on the radio we were to get another 4-8 inches overnight. Yeah, right. The TV forecasters weren't committing to quite that much. So I headed out to my haircut and doctor's appointment and then back home. By the time school was out, it was snowing, but we were still just under a Winter Weather Advisory...no big deal. Then, as I was on the phone to my dear friend, Kristi, in North Carolina, the National Weather Service warning came across the television. You would think I was twelve. We were now under a Winter Storm Warning and in for at least 4-8 inches! By the time I got off the phone, it was snowing hard. We decided to make a quick run for movies...and a fountain coke...I don't drink coffee, so I don't want to hear it...and the roads were already pretty bad. The radio said it was coming down around an inch an hour. It took us quite a while to make it back home.

Indeed, it snowed all night! I woke up at 5:30 am to find it still snowing hard. I knew before I turned on the TV that there was no school. After turning off alarm clocks, I went back to sleep for a bit but woke up at 6 am with Mickey in my room. Helloooo! In my book, a snow day equals sleeping in! I shooed him out to watch PBS, and dozed back off. At 7:30, I awoke to the sound of the snow blower out front. Seriously. At 7:30 AM!!!! Arrrggghhh! And the snow blower eventually woke Caroline from a deep sleep, and she's cranky.

So here are pictures of how boys handle snow days...

It was still pretty dark out,

but I had to stop using flash...

All I was getting was flakes...

Hmmm...

And here are pictures of how girls handle snow days...

Don't you just love her bed head?

Jon just had to try to go to work...thus the need to clear the driveway. The roads were so bad that he turned around in about five minutes and went to his mom's house to work. Apparently, they haven't plowed recently by us. According to the TV, they are only plowing at this point and haven't started actually treating the roads. One reading was almost 11 inches, another was 13 inches. So we'll go with about a foot of snow, as an average. I think it's finally starting to taper off. I finally got Mickey to come in and warm up. He was sopping wet and freezing cold. I'll try to update later in the day.