Snow Apocalypse 2010

That's how it's being referred to: a snow apocalypse. Record-breaking snow for the second time this winter. We have a hearty 2 feet on the ground here in our neck of Northern VA - more in between houses and places where the storm from earlier this week hadn't yet melted. We're making the best of it, though. Adam and the kids have shoveled a maze around the driveway and are at present playing hide and seek WWI style - in the trenches. Since I'm 6 months preg-o, I'm off shovel duty this round and have been the official photographer and soup-maker.

The neighbors and snowblowers are out now that our 36 hours of straight snowfall has finally come to a close. I like how a big storm brings us all a little closer together. Too often, we become too busy within the walls of our own homes to spend any face time with the folks up the street. Adam's already helped push one adventurous neighbor up the street. We're going to be staying close to home for the next while; no chance of our little Toyota Corolla making it up the hill at present.

Here are a few photos of our snowy day (in no particular order, since I don't feel like fighting that blogger battle):








Noteworthy consequences of this snowstorm:
-VA governor Bob McDonnell has declared VA to be in a state of emergency
-A good chunk of our ward was without power starting at 5AM. Ours flickered off briefly, but we were lucky enough to have heat all day.
-Loudoun County has already canceled school for Monday and Tuesday. (This coming Tuesday, we are supposed to have ANOTHER snowstorm, so who knows when school will be back in? Spencer didn't go to preschool at all last week since Monday was a teacher work day, Wednesday we were out because of last Tuesday night's snow, and Friday school was canceled because this granddaddy of a storm started at 10AM...and just stopped a few minutes ago.)
-We realized that as part of our emergency preparation, we need a basic phone that plugs directly into the phone jack and requires no additional power. When checking in with several friends, we weren't able to get through on land lines because we all have cordless phones.
-One of our bathtubs upstairs is full of some "just in case" water. Gross thing is that it looks like pool water (a strange blue tint). We'll be using our water pitcher with the charcoal filter more faithfully after this. (Don't worry - the bathroom door is locked to prevent any potential safety hazard from the little ones).