The Snowstorm that Crippled New England

On October 29th we were getting the kids ready for the Trunk or Treat at our church when snow starting coming down hard. The Trunk or Treat was cancelled and by 9pm we had lost power. Our power went out during Hurricane Irene but only for a few hours so I wasn't that worried. The kids thought it was awesome getting ready for bed with flashlights and we went to sleep thinking we'd be up and running in the morning.

 When we woke up the next day there was still no power. Our house was a chilly 60 degrees and there was a 10 inch blanket of snow covering our yard.

 Church was cancelled so we bundled up the kids and got to work shoveling the driveway.

The girls were so excited about the snow and we didn't realize at that point how much damage it had done so we just let them play and enjoy it for awhile.

Then Taber went to go check on some of the families from church and that's when we realized how bad it was. Since the snow had come early, all the trees still had their leaves and the heavy snow made them come crashing down. Hundreds of trees and power lines were down, taking out the power for over 80% of Nashua.

Here's a video Taber took driving around our neighborhood of some of the damage. It's pretty crazy to see all the broken trees everywhere.

No power in the winter means no heat, and the forecast for the next few nights called for temps in the low 20's. Fortunately in our church we have an emergency plan that includes a list of all the people with generators in case of a power outage. The "generator families" were kind enough to open their homes for people to take hot showers, get a warm meal and in many cases, have a warm place to sleep since the temperature inside of the homes without power was dropping into the 40's.

Some of our friends with power let us bring our frozen food over to their freezer so it wouldn't go bad. Then they kindly sent me home with a pot of hot chili and homemade bread. Despite the huge inconvenience of not having electricity, it was actually kind of fun to be in campout mode at our house. We bundled up, broke out the candles and headlamps and tried to make an adventure out of it.

That night we moved all the beds down into the family room by our fireplace so we could stay warm. The fire kept us nice and toasty but the rest of the house was dipping into the 50's so we stayed contained to the family room where we played, slept, and ate.

The next day was Halloween but the city postponed trick or treating for a week and school was cancelled. I felt really bad that the girls had been jipped out of trunk or treat, Teya's class party, and now trick or treating. Luckily our friends who live 40 minutes south in Massachusetts had power and invited us to trick or treat with them since their city was still doing it. The girls had a blast (pictures to come later) and when we came home we were overjoyed to find that our power was back on!

The next few days we hosted families who still didn't have power. People came to shower, do laundry and sleepover. School was cancelled all week until Friday and our internet and phones didn't come back until then either. Luckily by Friday most of our city was up and running again but our poor neighbors in Connecticut were still without power for another week! 

In the end we spent 40 hours without power.  It was a crazy adventure that taught us a lot about emergency preparedness in the winter and gave us a new sense of gratitude for things like central  heating, our dishwasher and Cam's white noise machine : )

Ready or Not, Here it COMES!!

This morning when Teya looked out our window and saw this picture she was jumping around for joy, shouting, "WINTER'S HERE!!! WINTER'S HERE! HOORAY!!" The moment was not quite so joyous for me. I tried to be get excited with her but last year the 2nd week October was a picturesque scene of fall beauty, NOT big fat snowflakes dumping from the sky. I felt like I was being robbed of fall. I'm not sure if I'm ready for this, but at least Teya's happy. (And I'm crossing my fingers it will melt and we'll have a few more weeks before this whole place freezes over for the rest of the winter!)

"Don't eat the yellow snow Mom, just the white snow." Ew. seeing her eat ANY snow makes me cringe but it's all part of childhood so I figure a few bites won't hurt right?

Let's make a snow man!

The finished product. Guess I can't complain too much when the snow make her this happy. She is so in love with winter, good thing too since it looks like it will be a LONG one this year!

August means it's summer cramming time!

Something funny happens in Minnesota in August. It's like all of a sudden you spend every possible minute outdoors because you know that any day the weather will turn cold and you'll be stuck inside for 9 long months!! Okay, so maybe not THAT long, but I do remember moving here last year at the end of August and I heard a girl say something to the effect of, "It's almost September. I'm already having anxiety just thinking about it. I mean I really have knots in my stomach just thinking about the winter." At the time I was like, "It's 80 degrees outside! What is she talking about?" But now I know that feeling. And that is why we are cramming it all in as summer starts winding down.

Today we busted out the kid back pack and decided to check out some hiking trails in the nearby Elm Creek nature preserve. It was more of a nature walk than a hike, since Teya's little legs can only handle so much.

She had a wonderful time discovering every little thing on the trail. She found "The reddest leaf ever!" and the orangest leaf ever, and the greenest leaf ever, all of which she demanded I keep safe and never throw away. She was delighted by the blue butterflies and squealed every time she saw one of the hundreds of little frogs that inhabited the trail. She even caught one (with the help of Mommy) but decided to let him go so he could find his family.

After our hike we decided to cool down by swimming at the "beach" which is actually a really cool man made chlorinated lake. When we got there we ran into our neighbors, Kara and Taylor and enjoyed hanging out in the water with them for awhile.

You'll notice that Teya and Brinley have matching suits, courtesy of Grandma Karen.
Their swimsuits also came with these coverups. I had to take a picture so Grandma could see how cute her gift looked on the girls.


At the end of the day the girls were pretty tired but it was fun to see them playing so hard and knowing that these summer memories will help keep us warm through the winter : )

A glimpse of Spring

On Monday, after 5 long months of winter we were given a little glimpse of Spring. The temperature got up into the 60s! EVERYONE was outside. I saw several people jogging in shorts and tank tops. We went to the little park by our house that we haven't visited for months. Last time we played there Brinley was just a sleepy little lump kickin' back in the Snugli. Now she can go down the slide (on my lap of course) and enjoy the park a lot more.

Today we are back down in the 30's but Monday's beautiful weather was enough to help me realize that there is a light at the end of the tunnel and that my "You have to wear your coat" battles with Teya will soon be a thing of the past. Can't wait!

Bring on the Cold!

" There is no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothes"

-Guy at the warm gear store

-10 degrees? -24 with wind chill? Bring it on Minnesota! Bring it on!!