The Top Five

I stopped at the grocery store with the kids for a quick trip on Friday afternoon, and felt like I'd entered a movie set for one of those end-of-days apocalypse movies. Every isle was packed, every check-out line was open and four carts deep, and by the time I walked out, the parking lot was almost completely full.

I shop my grocery sales as good as the next person, and I knew the crowds weren't there for any sales. On our drive home, I looked around and noticed that ALL the stores were packed. I went to the gas station, and had to wait in line for gas.

So, I did what any wife would do who spends most of her day absorbed in her little people's lives - which usually means hearing the news in small blips, reading a main headline online, or peeling her eyes open to watch the end-of-the-evening news - I called my hubby.

Did I know a storm was coming? You betcha.
Did I know that the news stations had released an announcement that everyone should do any type of errand that Friday afternoon in preparation for the big storm? Nope.
Did part of me think "oh, a storm warning, we'll see how much this one actually delivers."

Maybe it's because I'm from Utah, that I've felt a bit of distrust in the weathermen. If you've lived there, you know what I mean. While I'd put no fault on them directly, I just think that weather is very hard to predict, and I can think of countless times those Utah weathermen would announce a "big storm is coming!" only to get a couple of inches. And then we'd have plenty of mornings where nothing had been mentioned and we'd wake up and see snow had dumped (see this post for example).

But, in my six months of being in the Midwest, I've noticed how completely different the weather is here - to a point where you really need to be on guard and have the knowledge base of what is happening to those clouds in the sky - no matter what time of year.

So, I expected a storm. Just not one of the top 5 storms in the Twin Cities history of recording weather.

In short, we've been snowed in. Literally.

As predicted, the storm entered strong Friday night and lasted through last night. Everything across the state has been canceled (yep, even church). The blizzard was so intense and the snow drifts were so bad yesterday, that snow plows were even taken off of the roads because it was too dangerous. We went to sleep last night looking outside and, because of the snow drifts, saw no difference in elevation between our front yard, the driveway and the street.

Then the winds picked up and temps dropped. As I'm typing this post, we have a lovely high of 2, with a wind chill of -20.

So, what do you do when you're stuck in a house for two days? Well, Mike and Max have done a lot of shoveling! Pulling out all of the crafts, games, books and movies has been fun too.

I have to say, it's a bit nice having nowhere to go. Is is cold? You betcha. Here's an pic from the inside of our front door knob. Completely glazed over with ice.

But I honestly can't say that I hate it. Call us crazy, but surviving and adapting to some extreme weather here and there only adds character.


Some pics of the storm yesterday:

Last night I thought our windows looked like a winter wonderland Christmas card!



And, some pics from today:

Stay warm!!