Snow Day

So yesterday my backyard had a few inches of snow and a nice path from our house to our detached garage.  This is what my backyard looked it....

From about 2pm yesterday afternoon until about 4am or so this morning Cedar Rapids, Iowa (where I call home) received about 13 inches of snow.  We were also under a Blizzard Warning, which involves long lasting high winds.  So needless to say we knew that school was going to be canceled.  They actually had an early release yesterday and by 7pm last night they had called off school for today.  No big deal....we couldn't have gotten out anyway.  At 4:50am this morning we got a call from my husband's work to tell us that they too were closing for today so that was nice (although he wouldn't have gotten out of our alley either).

So when the kids woke up this morning Brian got up with them and let me sleep in - YEAH!!!!  I ended up waking up around 8:30am.  When I came downstairs I took a picture of my backyard....this is what I saw....

Just a little different, huh?  So after breakfast Brian decided it was time to go out and snowblow the walk....which I have to say I am SOOO happy we bought a snow blower last winter because I think it earned it's keep today ;).

I decided I needed to take some pictures of this blizzard and also I ended up helping with some shoveling of the porch and such places that the snow blower can't do.

So on our way out the garage we got to walk through the yard you see above.  Here are a couple pics from around the yard and the drifts.

It was fun going out to the garage...I'm so glad that I bought myself a pair of snowpants this year.  11 years in Iowa and I've never own a pair before. 

When we got into the garage it was interesting to see some of the things we found.  The wind was blowing so strong last night that we had snow drifts INSIDE of our garage door.  We had a couple bags of trash hanging on a door knob and they were also covered in snow....

So then I opened up the garage door and back door of the garage to see how much was resting again the doors.  There wasn't that much right at the door but there was about a 3 foot path from the snow and then the snow drift.

Do you notice the "grass" that you can see under the snow in the top picture?  That tells you how much snow was blown around. 

So after we looked around it was time to get to clearing the snow.  So after Brian got the snow blower started this is the trek we took....

  Notice how the path goes from being not too deep to being REALLY deep.  It's amazing how much snow get thrown into the air and how high the snow goes when we, that's the Royal we, are clearing it's path.

Next came conquering the front yard and the porch.  It is very interesting to see how some snow just piles up and sits on things...like the mailbox....

So as Brian goes to try to clear the walkways I started to tackle the porch.  It was interesting to look at the steps up to the porch and not find steps.  I found a ramp of snow.

So as Brian tackled the sidewalks...I promise they really are under there...

I tackled the porch.  One shovel at a time.  

And after about 30 mins total work time we got our sidewalks, porches, and walkway to our garage done. 

Unfortunately I thought it was too cold for the kids to be able to play in the snow today.  Our high was like 10 but with the wind chills it was never above zero.  And since last week almost EVERYONE in my house was sick and I really don't want to have that continue.  So hopefully this weekend it will be warm enough, if the meteorologists are correct, that we can get out and actually have some fun in the snow.  And if we do I'm sure I'll be able to take pics and blog about it. So be on the look out!