Where to Put the Snow!

We just went through about 48 hours of yet another snow storm, dropping over 2 feet of snow in Greater Boston, and more landing on the South Shore... where we are of course.   The only thing to do when more snow comes is to strap on skis or a snowboard and get moving down a mountain, or hill even!

Saturday was ski and snowboard lessons for Zoë and Vince. Despite the huge amount of organization and prep time getting them there, and then the hurdles and chaos of the rentals, the kids did have a good time once they got out there.  It was snowing when they got out to their classes, and the snow was fluffy and light... perfect for learning!  I took a few runs myself while they were in their classes.  The conditions out here actually remind me of the powder I used to know and love well out in Colorado.

I got a short video of Vince cruising down on his board, go buddy!

Zoë chose to continue learning how to ski, and was put in the corral of the youngest skiers.  She has since graduated and will be going to the magic carpet next time.  She is used to it already, and was complaining about where it was the whole time. 

pose for the camera! 

Meanwhile, back at the homestead... we've gotten to the point where we don't know where to put all the snow!  The sides of our driveway has a wall of snow a mile high.  We can't add any more to it!  We have so much snow on our roof, and the poor areas of insulation has caused snow melt and ice dams, resulting in roof leaks.  We have two so far.  Don't even get me started on ice dams, I've learned more than I ever wanted to know about f'ing ice dams.  We got some roofers to come to the house today to remove some of the snow from our rooftop.  This was after I saw some houses literally collapse on the news because of the weight of the snow.  At first it was fine, small piles of snow growing around the perimeter of the house.  But it kept going, and going. After 3 hours the snow ended up covering up the better part of our 2nd story dining room!

We've all had a good time playing in it however:

Luca, contemplating his sledding ride

 Zoë and our neighbor sliding down into our driveway

Mike made a trench through the snow, so we could have shelter during our neighborhood snowball fight

 The sweet rewards of coming inside, getting popcorn and hot chocolate
I guess I put a little too many kernals in

I'm In Love with Snowshoeing

I'm trying to keep us all busy with fun winter sports to get us through these repeated snow storms that we've been getting this year!  We must be over our snow fall record by a few feet at least by now.  Having loads of snow everywhere that has no intention of melting anytime soon, had led me to spending way more money than I should be spending through this winter.  But we'll just skip over that fact, and get straight to the pictures of Vince and Zoë snowshoeing with me in our back woods.

Here's Zoë and I exploring our new shoes, getting used to them. I risked getting my new iPhone dropped in the snow to prop it in a tree and use the timer so we could both get in the picture... Not smart, but I got lucky

Making shadow snow monsters

It's  a lot of fun to look around at all the deep snow and be able to literally climb anywhere you want and scale up any hill. The snowshoes made me feel like spider woman!  

Vince got in on the fun as well, after another storm

It's pretty deep for half pints like these two, hard work!

They thought they would pick up some "antlers" to make themselves look like deer:

Ok, now it's off to Vince and Zoë's day of ski and snowboard lessons.... We'll see how Vince does in a snowboard for the first time!

Snowmageddon: Part 2

We made it through the night, and managed to keep power, thank goodness.  I woke up a few times here and there, weather it was from little people crawling into my bed, or the whistling of the wind whipping around snow outside. 

Waking up in the morning, it was snowing sideways.... and didn't look to be slowing down any time soon!  The kids wanted to go outside immediately.  Dressing each kid in their snow gettup takes longer than the time they want to be outside, and by the time I get through all three of them I already want to collapse just from that!  

Zoë had more fun with her snowshoes, excited she was taller than the mailbox!

 Vince enjoyed scaling the snow drifts as well

time to tackle the driveway....thank God for snow blowers, although they are NOT EASY to push around

 

 And.... after literally 9 hours of shoveling and snow blowing, my driveway was functional again

And now I'm physically and mentally exhausted.  And seeing that it's still snowing, and that the driveway is covered again... I'm sobbing!

We did manage to get some warm snuggles while inside the house today. 

Getting Ready for Snowmageddon

Yes, we are expecting the blizzard of the century up here in New England.  I think it's been named Juno.  State of Emergency has been called, school cancelled for tomorrow, and likely Wednesday too.  The news keeps reporting the driving curfew, advising to stay off the roads, or you could get fined or even put in jail.  They remind us that blizzard conditions really means you ACTUALLY CAN'T SEE much further than 4 feet ahead of you.   
Mike just flew out to Albuquerque on business.  His plane left at 3pm.  He gave me the quick brush up training on how to use the snow-blower.  Hopefully I can dig us out of the house at some point.  All I can say is..... payback's a bitch.  And boy will he pay for ditching us during this storm of predicted 'historical proportions'.

So what do I do when I'm stressed, needing to deflect my frustration?... why, I go shopping of course.  I've been wanting a pair of snowshoes for a while now, so what better timing!?  Found a pair for myself, and some for Vince and Zoë too.  We'll be able to scale any mountain of snow that comes our way! (I hope).

 Zoë and Vince 'hiked' around our front yard trying out their new shoes.  This has got to be my favorite picture of Zoë right now, little cutie!

 She decided to run a circle around the tree...

 And who knew there were such a thing as light up snowshoes?  Vince loves his new bling snowshoes

 Now, if the power will just please STAY ON, and will the snow blower just please NOT blow up or catch fire while I'm digging us out (thanks Jon Manto for that lovely story, feeding my angst!), we may just have ourselves an ok time.  So far it's been ok.  The kids are bathed and asleep, my mom and I are watching Golden Girls, while sipping wine and thinking about purchasing the personal pedi callus remover we just saw on TV.  I'll try and update tomorrow!     

MLK (non)weekend

Vince was fine at 10am Saturday, then at noon falls onto the couch like a rag doll, saying he doesn't feel well.  Ugh... Fever of 102.7, turned out the poor kid got the flu.  It's Sunday evening now, and he's doing much better however... Able to bug his siblings successfully again.  I attribute that shortened course of flu to the fact he got the flu shot.  It didn't protect him completely, but that's a pretty quick bounce back!