Ice

 After several days of a beautiful, winter wonderland the snow froze and a thick layer of ice settled on top. The picture above is so interesting to me. It looks like it had been raining, but it hadn't. The sheen is the top layer of ice. It was so thick that Leila could stand on it without breaking through. The ice was beautiful!! It was amazing to see the way it froze on tree branches, leaves, lampposts and even the rock wall. I couldn't stop taking pictures of the ice in the yard. While it was gorgeous it turned problematic rather quickly. Trees branches were snapping and falling under the weight of the ice. Power lines were downed. The line  above our mailbox was sparking all night. We kept thinking we would lose power, but amazingly we did not!! The neighbors power line pole cracked at the base and was leaning, rather precariously, over the road for several days. The lines were 5 feet off the roadway. Chris and I spent quite some time sitting on the couch in the front room watching and listening to huge chunks of ice and branches fall onto the icy ground. I think even Chris was a bit nervous about the trees, as he didn't even tease me about wanting Leila to sleep in our room overnight. Not one bit. Her room is closer to all the trees in the yard and I was a little worried that part of a tree might come down. It was a very memorable winter storm to say the least!

 If you click on any of the pictures it will enlarge the photo and make it easier to see just how thick the ice coat was! 

 Look how thick the ice on these branches is!

Winter Wonderland Wednesday

 We just kept getting snow! Wednesday brought us LOTS of snow! The tracks from the previous days' snow play and sledding were completely covered.

Our road...which gets pretty dicey in this kind of weather. Good thing we are both teachers and have these days off! Between our driveway and our road out front, it can be tricky to get around town.

Our back porch...

 Here is our snowman from two days ago.

 We measured 7.5 inches!

  A cushion of snow to sit on.

 The BIG snowman!! A pirate snowman...probably inspired by watching countless reruns of Disney's Jake and the Neverland Pirates with our little pirate.

More Snow on Monday!

 Monday morning brought even more snow! We now had the grass and trees covered. Chris stayed home all day and we played for quite some time outside! It was beautiful!!

 We broke out the sled and took some turns down the smallest of inclines in our front yard.

 Our home from the top of the driveway.

 Leila and Chris soon decided that the next sledding adventure would be the driveway.

Tuesday morning we had a two hour delayed start of school. We rode together to Sandy's and school. Chris canceled his after school rehearsal for Tuesday. We headed to the grocery store and home as soon as we could. The forecast was calling for lots of snow Tuesday night and Wednesday...boy were the forecasters right this time!

The Storm Continues

 Sunday morning we woke up to the little bit of snow that was left from the night before. It wasn't much, but it was enough to play in for a bit. Chris was able to stay home and play in the snow with us until the afternoon, when he went into school to work on the set for the musical.

We built a little snowman and Leila named him Jack Skellington because of his stick fingers.

After Chris left for school, Leila and I changed Jack into Mickey Mouse.

The Snow Storm Begins

Wow! In January we were hit quite hard with a huge winter storm. It all began Saturday afternoon, January 14th. When Leila woke up from her nap, it was barely starting to snow. We ran outside to play in the light dusting of snow. It continued and even started to stick!

These pictures were taken at 3:30 pm...look how cloudy and dark the skies were!