Winter Storm

We had a winter storm!! That's the good news. The bad news is that the storm occurred during the worst two days of the week that it could have- Saturday and Sunday. My reason for saying it occurred at the worst time is, of course, vis a vis the kids and (not) missing school due to the storm.

The storm was predicted to hit on Saturday. Knowing a storm was coming on the weekend was like rubbing salt in a wound. That the storm ran Saturday and into Sunday was like continuing to rub salt in a wound. The kids would have missed two days of school if the storm had arrived Monday through Thursday. 

I subbed at one of the schools on Friday and the teachers were lamenting that the storm was coming over the weekend, too. Complaining about weekend storms is definitely not just for the 18 and younger set. 😁As soon as I was done subbing on Friday, I headed straight to Kroger to do some grocery shopping. I knew the store would be crowded with a storm predicted over the weekend- sure enough, it was crowded. At the store, I overheard several people chatting to someone near them, "I'm not here because of the storm. I was planning on coming anyway." There seems to be some stigma attached to running to the store when three to five inches of snow are predicted. I'm not ashamed to say that I ran to the store because a storm was predicted. While we had milk and bread and plenty of food at home, we were running low on teenager approved snacks. And who wants to be stuck at home with almost three teenagers and no good snacks? Not I. Regarding being stuck at home, the snow that was predicted to come didn't daunt me nearly as much as the freezing rain that was named as a possibility to arrive with the storm. It was the possibility of freezing rain that had me prepare to be at home some or all of the weekend. 

The snow storm, did, in fact, as predicted arrive Friday night and into Saturday. When I woke up on Saturday, after sleeping in to {the glorious time of} 6:46 am, I looked out the window right away and saw what looked like about two inches of snow on the ground. And it was still coming down. Snow would fall most of the day on Saturday, not heavy but fairly consistently. Donnie went to his gym to work out in the late morning. He said, after he arrived home, that the owner of the gym said that she'd almost not opened the gym that morning. Donnie said the roads were fine although the roads in our neighborhood weren't plowed. Jacob drove to the Y in the early afternoon and reported that the roads he drove on to get to the Y were fine. 

I ended up not going anywhere all day which was A-OK with me. I'd already grocery shopped; I had a few errands that would need to be run in the next week or so but nothing urgent. We almost always eat out on Saturday night- many times it's take out rather than us all going to a restaurant but whatever form it is, dinner is generally not prepared by me or anyone in our family on Saturday evening (this is something we all love about the weekend :)). Due to freezing rain being predicted on Saturday, I planned an easy meal for Saturday that I could prepare at home so we didn't have to go out. I'm glad that I did that; around dinner time, the snow picked up and I was happy to spend time in the kitchen, rather than in the elements, to procure dinner. 

Before dinner, in the late afternoon, Alyssa asked me if I'd take Avery and her to E. Milo Beck park to sled. The park has a really big hill. Avery, who lives in our neighborhood, has a small hill in her backyard. It's the small hill in Avery's backyard that my kids have grown up sledding on. It's a really small hill but it's so convenient- just a few houses down from ours. No one has to drive and a bathroom for last minute potty needs, a band aid for wounds incurred on sledding excursions and hot chocolate to warm the body and soul after spending time outdoors is a mere 30 second walk away. Nevertheless, I was willing to drive the girls to E. Milo. Then Alyssa told me that Avery's dad preferred if the girls stayed in the neighborhood and sledded in Avery's back yard. Sounded good to me :). The hill at E.Milo terrifies me a bit- my risk adverse personality combined with the size of the hill is a recipe for anxiety for me.  Alyssa and Avery, who were joined at some point by Avery's sister Ashely, stayed outside for over two and a half hours. Later, Avery joined us for dinner at our house. 

Sunday, we had church. We planned on going to the early service because Alyssa had an indoor soccer game in Mason at noon. I woke up Sunday morning morning around 7:00 (I really slept in) and peaked outside a window to see what had happened overnight. Snow had definitely happened! I checked our church's website to see if church was canceled. I didn't see anything on the site. Then I looked at our local newspaper online to see its list of cancellations. Many churches had canceled services. A few mentioned that the early service was canceled but the later service would occur. Our church wasn't listed at all. We woke the kids up for church and told them we needed to hurry because we'd have to leave even earlier than we normally do for the early service due to roads not being all the way plowed (plus it was snowing and had been ever since I woke up). Abby came into our room and said that church was canceled, per Instagram. OKAY.

Then all we had to do was go to Alyssa's soccer game. The place where she plays, Wall2Wall, only cancels if there's a Level 2 snow emergency. We knew there wasn't that so we began to make plans to go to her game- figuring out how much earlier we'd need to leave, which way to get there (the interstate- not normally what we take but we figured it would be the best route to take today as back roads wouldn't be in as good as shape), etc. Then we received a text saying that our opponents called W2W and said they weren't coming to W2W to play. OKAY!!! 

Alyssa went sledding again. Jacob went to the Y again. Donnie and Abby ran an errand. Just I stayed home all day :). In the evening, we watched a video of a church sermon from a weekend when we couldn't go to church. It's so nice to be able to view (online) missed church services.

I know that to the kids, the weekend storm represented a missed opportunity to miss school. Despite the kids not missing school due to the storm occurring during the weekend, I hope the kids enjoyed the bit of cessation from normal activities and appreciated the beauty of their surroundings.


Just a day in the sixties in early January. This was five days before Saturday. I think it was the third day in 2019 that we'd had 60 degree weather. The low for the night was 29- the balmy days were about ready to come to an end...

Friday afternoon after the grocery store- storm preparedness at its best: Got Nilla Wafers, Ruffles and chocolate. Bring on the snow!

I don't normally buy hunks of chocolate. The chocolate was marked down to $.99 a pound. I wouldn't have purchased it at $4.99/ lb. Alyssa has been asking to make chocolate covered potato chips (hence the Ruffles- a BOGO sale resulted in four bags(!) and chunks of chocolate). Also, all of the kids inexplicably love Nilla Wafers.

I didn't plan to cook on Saturday so we decided to let Bob Evans and Co. provide our Friday night meal. Grilled chicken, mashed potatoes, rolls and peanut butter cookies comprised the perfect pre storm meal.

Saturday morning- gathering snow for snow cream

When you're too lazy to go out in the snow but you want photos of the snow...

When you're too lazy to go out in the snow but you want chocolate chip M & M cookies so you bake some.. Jacob helped me with these

 Avery and Alyssa- sledding small hill style

Alyssa watches Avery go down

Alyssa's snow pants are a kids size 7/8 and her coat is one of my puffer coats. I think her boots fit her just right 😊

Avery's dad told me that Avery's snow pants are a size 6x. I'm glad I'm not the only parent who hasn't, um, kept up with the buying of correct size snow pants :).

 Later Ashley joined the fun

The next couple of pics are blurry. I was losing light so it was harder to get non blurry pictures

The next few pictures are from Sunday- I can't blame a lack of good light for this one...Fortunately, my view finding skills improved

In an effort to make their small hill sledding experience a bit more exciting, the girls created a snow mound over which they would sled and gain more momentum that way.

Some of the other kids in the neighborhood joined the girls.

 Alyssa and Jude

It looks kind of like Alyssa is taking Jude's sled away from him to be mean. But, she really took it from him so that he didn't have to carry it up the hill.

I took all of the sledding pictures from Avery's back yard. I took the next few pictures from her back yard, too. They just don't feature kids in them.

 

I love the tiny bit of green in this one.

 Snow much fun!