Almost Blizzard of 2010

Today is a snow day! Becky and Ally are on school vacation this week, but we got so much snow here that we closed my company for the day, so I am home too! We have about 12" in the past 24 hours and a few more predicted to fall today. This morning Ally demanded to go out and play in the snow. She was very patient while we got ready and dressed to brave the weather.

Ally hates wearing mittens, but even she did not resist too much this time.

She loved the snow!

A huge pile of snow right outside our house. Ally started to sit on her shovel and slide down on that. I am standing there to show you how tall the pile was.

So we got her sled out.

And with help from mama

Ally had her first sledding experience! Gotta love the city...sledding into the street, I know its not the safest, but I was actually standing in the middle of the street and there are virtually no cars driving in this weather, so we felt it was pretty safe.

All of our neighbors were out shoveling as well, and I think Ally's squeals of delight warmed us all up. They kept pausing in their work to lean on their shovels and smile at us, and Ally. Then there were words about remembering the joy of snow from our childhood. It made digging out from the storm a pleasure.

Ally and I walked around the house - this is our side yard. I wanted to show how deep the show was on Ally.

She worked so hard to walk - she'd get about 3 steps and then fall, and laugh and then get up and do it again! After this walk Ally was very cold, and we had finished shoveling and clearing off the car so we went inside.

And promptly drank hot cocoa!

For the record - the post says Almost Blizzard, because the meteorologists have carefully explained on the news that a snowstorm has certain qualifications it has to meet to be officially a blizzard. We came close, but our winds were sustained at 33 mph and a blizzard has 35 mph or greater. Blizzard or not, it is an awful lot of snow!