The Big Dig

The snow finally stopped and we ended up with a little more than twenty inches. That's more snow than we've ever seen here, and one of the top snows in the area's history. Funny, we thought sixteen inches a few weeks ago was a lot! It's the day after the big storm, the sun is shining and it's time for a little fun in the snow.

The plows finally got control of the larger streets. This one is a Snow Emergency Route because the fire trucks and ambulances use it, so it's first on the list of streets that get plowed. There are few cars using it though because none of the neighborhood streets (including ours) has been touched, and probably won't be plowed for days. It's a really nice pedestrian walkway, though. We spent much of the day digging from our driveway to this street so we could "escape" if necessary although we're not planning to drive anywhere for awhile.

That gave plenty of time for the kids to jump in the snow, built forts, have snowball fights with their friends, and all the other activities they might want to do after being trapped in the house for two days.

Nate built himself a little fort from the big piles of snow we shoveled while clearing the cars and the roadway around them.


Oh, this is one more shot to show you how deep it got. That's a full-sized trash bin. The bump of snow to the right is a recycling bin completely buried by the snowfall.

We hope that things start to improve over the coming days but they're predicting snow again for Tuesday night! The kids might be going to school until July at this rate!

Grandma Visits

Grandma and Grandpa Nick came to visit over the long weekend. They're not used to the "cold" weather and they must have thought they'd landed in the Arctic. Although there was still some ice on the river it actually got up to 50 degrees that day. We thought it was almost a tropical heat wave -- it rarely gets that warm in the middle of January -- but tell that to the snowbirds!


We simply couldn't waste such a beautiful day indoors so we took everyone out to Roosevelt Island. This is the marsh on the lower end of the island near the Interstate bridge. It looks so much different in the winter. Everything in the background is green at other times of the year including the tidal mudflats that are filled with cattails and swamp grasses. It looks barren and empty in January.

Grandma spent most of her time in a sweatshirt and under a blanket. Luckily Sean was there to snuggle up for extra warmth.


Nate couldn't let Sean get all the attention, though!

Christmas Memories

All was fine on Christmas, from the first moments the kids ran down the stairs until they went to bed after a full day of playing, visiting Grandpa, and eating way too much sugar. Here are Nate and Sean in front of the Christmas tree right before they ripped into the presents. Look out the window and you'll see we had a white Christmas for once!

Grandpa still had a lot of snow on the ground when we visited in the afternoon. Nate really enjoyed the humongous icicles hanging from the eaves of Grandpa's house. Better enjoy them now -- later that evening it got warmer and started to rain. Now the snow is just a distant memory.


Nate played checkers with his uncle. "Somehow" Nate won every game even though he's only played checkers one other time in his entire life. He must be a genius at it or maybe something else was going on?

Santa was very kind to the kids this year and brought them a Wii. Sean is a pretty good player, especially with this sword fighting game. All he has to do is swing back-and-forth and his enemies fall down all over the screen.