Blizzard 2009!

Wow!! I had no idea until 2 PM yesterday that a blizzard was headed our way. My husband called me from DC. "Go buy a sturdier snow shovel". Last I had checked, we were to get about 5 inches....no big deal. Ummm. As of 2 PM today, we have 16 inches and it is still coming down heavy! It says we are supposed to get 12-22 inches through the night! The last storm we had like this was in 2003 when Logan was just a few months old.

After the boys and I finished up a few things at home yesterday, we headed out to get a sturdier snow shovel. Costco was our first stop. They ran out at noon. Picked up some toilet paper while there...don't want to run out of that. Drove to Home Depot and saw a worker outside. Stalked him in my van until I was close enough for him to hear me. "Excuse me. Before I drag both of my kids out, can you tell me if you are out of snow shovels?" " Yes. We are sold out". I didn't bother going to Lowe's because it is right across the street and I figured if Home Depot was out, Lowe's would be, too. Headed to a Ace Hardware that is kind of tucked away and not in the main area of town. They were out, too, but expected a truck around 7 PM. Drove across to a grocery store. Stocked up on a bunch of food and found some ice melt there. Drove back to Ace...it was now 7:15. The sign on the door now said they expected the truck around 8 PM (possibly). I entered and saw a line. I went to the end and asked if it was the line waiting on the truck. Yes, it was. I called my husband, who was on the bus on his way home, and asked if he really expected me to wait in the line. Of course, I was only kidding when I asked him because I had no intentions of waiting.

Headed home and got all the groceries in and put away. I needed to mail a package and thought we could grab some food while out. Well, the snow came early and it was pretty bad when we finished eating. Should have gone straight home, but decided to stop at the Post Office since it was on the way. There was a line at the 24 hour kiosk. I was watching people drop their packages in the slot and hoping it didn't get full before I got to it. Sure enough, the woman before me dropped her packages in and it was jammed. I was out of luck. I had already bought my postage, so decided to take the route home that took me close to the other post office in town. Well, a lady was just going to leave her packages there and when she heard I was driving to the other post office, she gave me her packages, too. Guess I look like a good person :-). Made it to the other post office, but saw one person had slid into the curb, and another had crashed into a pole. Dropped my packages in and we were on our way home. Turned onto the road we live off, but had about 2 miles before we got to our neighborhood. Saw a few other people that slid of the road. I drove slow and steady. Made it 2 blocks from our house and the road going the other direction was closed to through traffic. We had just come down a hill and had one final one before turning into our neighborhood. The light was green, but the cars weren't moving. The person at the front of the line was just stopped in the intersection. I guess they just decided they didn't want to go up the hill. Several people got out from behind them and headed up the hill. I watched as they all slid around. I figured the roads were only going to get worse, so we went around. There was a pickup two cars ahead and they were literally almost sideways going up the hill. I passed the car that was just sitting and switched lanes. I headed up the hill and passed the sideways truck. Wow! We made it up the hill and I've never been so happy to turn into my community!!

Here are a few pictures that I've taken so far---The picture above was taken at about 1 AM on Dec. 19.This picture was taken at noon on Dec. 19.This was taken at about 2 PM on Dec. 19--about 16 inches, so far!!