Waite's Window: 2 Snow Days and Counting

Sunday, January 24, 2016

2 Snow Days and Counting

Our children have been hoping for a snow day ever since October. Tuesday the schools decided to start two hours late because of wind chill temperatures in the morning. They finally got a snow day on Thursday due to ice on the sidewalk and roads around the schools. It was handy for us because Emma's visit with Dr. Bankole got moved from Friday to Thursday because of the big storm set to come in on Friday. The roads were still fine Thursday for driving to Roanoke and back. When we got back to Buena Vista I decided we better stop and buy bread and milk in case we were snowed in without power for a few days. The store was really picked over, but I did get the bread and milk I needed.

Friday the big storm hit and it snowed all day. The kids were so excited! They went in and out all day. They loved playing in the snow and then coming in to warm up. We baked cookies in the afternoon and had a hot chocolate and cookie party in the evening.Southern Virginia University even canceled classes on Friday so Neil had a quiet day at his office without having interruptions. There were lots of SVU students sledding down Seminary Hill. We didn't take the kids over on Friday, but we did go over on Saturday morning. We don't have any sleds here so we had to make do with what we could figure out. We took a couple of aluminum pans, a shower curtain, and the plastic swimming pool. The pans worked the best and Josh was able to sled down. We didn't stay too long Saturday morning because the sledding wasn't great. Later in the day Dallin, Josh and I walked back across the street and tried again when it had warmed up a bit. The sledding was a lot better. Someone had left a foam sled that Dallin used. The boys could go much further down the hill in the afternoon and it was much faster. Neil came over after he finished shoveling out the drive way. The boys were having so much fun, they kept asking for just one more turn before we went home. Finally the wind started to come up and it got cold so we convinced them to quit.

We ended up with about a foot of snow. Washington DC had record breaking snow fall. We didn't lose power and we enjoyed a few days of just getting to stay home and hang out together. Today we only have Sacrament Meeting, and only if you feel safe in driving to come. The kids are hoping to have tomorrow off of school as well. It has warmed up and the snow is melting now, but there is still a lot snow on the ground. It is a beautiful winter wonderland out there.

Here are some pictures of our adventure with winter storm Jonas. It was kind of fun to watch the weather and be here to experience the record breaking snow storm of the century.