What do you do when you are snowbound?

(Well, not exactly snowbound, since we can drive around...you just don't want to.)

On the first day you wake up to a winter wonderland and say to yourself, "Wow, I have never seen this much snow."  Then, you open your window (because your doors are snowed in) and yell across the street to see how long it has taken your neighbor to shovel her front walkway.  After much thought about whether or not it is worth shoveling, since it is still snowing, you decide you might as well...It's not going to get any easier.  So, you gear up, take a bunch of pictures, and you go shovel for about 2 hours.  Of course you stop every 10 minutes or so, look around in amazement and say, "Man, this is a lot of snow.  I haven't even made a dent yet."  Then, you stop to talk to your neighbors for awhile.  You even get a call from your parent's in Scotland that have heard about the snow.  You also look in amazement as it seems your neighbor is getting a new granite countertop in the middle of all of this.  After 2 hours you have one shovel width of sidewalk done (including the old man's), and perhaps 1/4 of the driveway.  You have to work in layers.  It took me about 3 layers to get down to the driveway.

After deciding to take a break, you come inside and blog about the snow, Facebook about the snow and have some hot cocoa.  After looking at Facebook, you realize that there are people w/o power...people you know, people with small children, older people.  You make phone calls to your home & visiting teaching families.  You call the bishop.  You wonder if it will ever stop snowing...finally, it does...20".

You finish one half of your driveway (2 more hours). You call your friends that have no power and tell them to come over...they can't, they haven't been plowed out yet.  You even drive to their neighborhood and see if they can walk out to you, but it's too far.

You wonder if you will have church the next day...you will not.

The second day, your friends are finally plowed out and come over for the duration.  The duration was only about 6-7 hours, but it was fun and the kids didn't want them to go home. I'm sure the parent's enjoyed the shower.  After spending the night in a house that dipped down to 34 degrees and using old lumber from the garage in the fireplace, and then waking up to 4 degrees outside, I'm glad they called.  Halfway through the day you get a call that school is canceled for Monday.

Monday, you get up early and head out to Sam's Club to buy snacks to replenish for the next storm, coming on Tuesday.  I can't survive another one of these storms without chocolate.

You get another call that school is canceled for Tuesday.

You spend a lot of time playing "Clues (Clue)", "scrambling" (shuffeling) cards for various card games and watching the kids play in the snow.

Tuesday is pretty much the same.

Tuesday night you go to bed thinking maybe the 6-10" of snow won't come, since it has stopped snowing and there is only 1". 

Wednesday morning you wake up and there is 4" of snow.  While you are out shoveling, your neighbor tells you that he made it up to the main road, but then slid around and came back home.  More scrambling cards, more Clues.

I imagine Thursday will be similar, since there is no school tomorrow either.

Did I mention...it's still snowing.

One more pic of snow...by the way, it has stopped...for now

Sadie went to the neighbor's to play yesterday.  When I went to get her, this is what I saw.  (It's the back of our house.)  I'm thinking that I'm glad that the new roof got finished Wednesday!  I'm interested to see if the roofers claim that my new gutter clips are so strong that he could walk on them is true.

SNOW!!!

It was at 20" as of 3 hours ago.  It's still snowing.

Brotherly Love

Yesterday Henry was having a hard day. He came home from school and was mad at everyone. He was yelling and just generally being mean. After we had a snack it was time for piano.  When we got to piano I sent Sadie and Samuel in and Henry and I talked for a bit. He told me that he was upset because he had lied to me this week one day when he didn't have homework. He really did have homework, but he couldn't find it in his messy desk when the bell rang. He also was feeling too much pressure because everyone has so many high expectations of him. It was also bothering him that he thought no one in his family liked him. Here is his thought process on that one: In Sadie's prayers she prays for people to get better (this started when we were all not feeling well, and since she is four years old, her prayers are quite repetitive) and she never mentions Henry. So, we talked for awhile and then went inside. As soon as we walked in Samuel said "Hi, William." Of course since he didn't say "Hi, Henry" this was another cause of angst.

On the way home Henry mentioned that Samuel doesn't like him. I vehemently disagreed (as did Samuel) and told him that Samuel had written a paper at school about his friend. They each had to choose a friend to write about and Samuel had picked Henry. Thankfully, I had kept the paper, so as soon as we got home Samuel showed it to him. It is as follows:

I don't know what the picture is of, but I do know that the effect of this simple paper was amazing. You could almost see the love that Henry felt. He turned it over and wrote his own "story."

"My friend is Samuel his best talent is sharing. He is an awesome friend" On the bottom, upside down, it says "true story."

Samuel has made great leaps in his piano playing