Snowmageddon

On Saturday, the temperature reached near 60 degrees.  We played outside for hours, took walks around the block, played baseball, grilled out.

Fast forward five days to today, Thursday.  This is our neighborhood.

 

Those would be power lines drooping down over our neighbor's yard.  Yikes!

We have been stuck in our house for three days straight due to high winds, frigid temps, raining ice (yes, raining ice) and now snow.  And it's the ice that's really wreaking havoc in this city.  Ice is covering streets and sidewalks, power lines, trees and everything else in town.  We lie in bed at night and listen to the creaking, groaning and eventual snapping of giant tree limbs, followed by what sounds like glass shattering as the ice covered branches crash to the ground.  Roads are closed because of downed trees, businesses are shut down and school has been closed for two days.  (Remember we live in South Dakota.  School NEVER closes in South Dakota)  Thousands are without power.  Sirens are constant all throughout town as firefighters and police officers are working around the clock putting out fires and removing tree branches from on top of people's homes.  We, thankfully, still have power, heat and food (I did all my grocery shopping on Monday before the storm hit.  Whew!).   We're just going a little stir crazy, that's all!

Chris was home all day yesterday.  The power was out at his office and considering 90% of his job involves a computer, there wasn't much he could do.  Having him home made the day go by way faster.

This is the craziest April weather and I am unbelievably ready for SPRING!!!

Snow Day

Today is January 10 and for the first time this winter it snowed.  Not much to get excited about, but still it snowed.  And a certain 2 year old has been anxiously waiting for it to snow so he could use his new sled.  And I could hardly deny him the chance.  So despite the cold temps and the wind, we ALL bundled up and headed outside. 

are you ok, Carter?

Our "sledding" consisted of me pulling them back and forth through our tiny yard.  And after 15 minutes Carter and I were cold and we decided to head in.  Brooks was probably cold too, but the little Eskimo would live outside if I let him.  I had to bribe him with some hot chocolate just to get him inside.

Sledding

Well, on Saturday the frigid colds temps finally broke (at least for a day or two) and enabled us to enjoy the outdoors.  It was close to 30 degrees that day, but felt like 60 compared to the -30 temps we'd been having.  Anyway, we pulled on our snowpants, laced up our books and took to the slopes.  The sledding slopes that is.  It was Brooks' first time sledding and he LOVED it.  He's always been my outdoor-sy little guy and this was no different.

And despite his oversized snowpants, the clunky books and the squishy snow, Brooks was actually able to walk around.  In fact, that's what he preferred to do!! 

Every time we tried carrying him to the top of the hill, he'd yell "down down" and wiggle out of our arms until we had no choice but to comply.

But because he wasn't quite able to walk up the hill himself, we had to push him up in the sled.  Yeah.  That's a lot of work.  Makes me tired just thinking about it.

And even though he tipped over on most of his trips down, he never cried or complained.  Just asked for "more".

After our cheeks were sufficiently rosy, we decided to pack it up and head home.  Chris planned to shovel the sidewalk while Brooks and I went inside to start dinner. But he begged to stay outside and help daddy.  So he stayed out another 45 minutes or so, totally happy with just being outside.  This weekend is supposed to warm up again so I'm looking forward to some more outside time with my boys!