The Blizzard of 2010

I can't believe more than a week has gone by and I have not yet blogged about the blizzard! Well, I guess I can believe it. It's been a bit, um, busy around here.

Being outside of Boston, we were hit with snow and wind but thankfully our grand total of snow accumulation was only about 18 inches. We did have drifts and snow banks that were almost as tall as me though. I took this picture of our deck on Monday morning. Keep in mind that it was still snowing, albeit lightly, and continued to do so until after lunch time.



We moved into this house during the fall when the girls were still babies. I remember that first winter collapsing onto my bed after all three babies were successfully napping in their cribs. Sometimes I would sleep (only to be awakened much too soon by my habitually short nappers). Sometimes I would read. Sometimes I would simply stare out the window. It's amazing how easy it is just to stare out the window.

So anyway, there were times that winter when the world outside my window appeared black and white. Void of any color. I always wanted to capture it via a photograph but, photographically speaking, I didn't know what I was doing. I loved photography but I didn't know how to take an idea and make it work. Now I do. And the weather conditions were perfect.



One of my "Christmas presents" this year was a Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8 lens, which I used for the above photo. (When I refer to something as a "Christmas present" it simply means that I bought it for myself in the month of December.) I love the wide angle and character that the distortion adds to the photo.

I was at home on Monday, the day that the storm ended, and the girls kept asking to play outside in the snow but it was FREEZING out, very windy and still lightly snowing. Some of the wind gusts during the heart of the storm were equivalent to those of a Category 1 hurricane. So yeah, windy. By mid-afternoon, we had reached the "now or never because the sun is about to go down" time period. Still very windy but I bundled the girls up, which took FOREVER, and out we went.

Allie was the adventuresome one for this outing.



I decided to lug the three of them one by one over to a snow drift. Yes, I torture my children.



Take a look at the trees in the photo. Do you see the white dots? That's not snow falling. That's snow blowing at a very high speed.

And here's a picture of the fence from this summer so you can see how deep the snow is in front of it.



At least one of my kids had some fun.

But in all honesty, it was horrible out there. The wind was blowing icy pellets in our faces so we didn't last long. We trudged back inside, snuggled under some blankies on the couch and watched Beauty and the Beast.

I have to note how much I saved this year by not having to purchase any winter gear for the girls. Those are their winter coats from last year which still fit. I have two more sets (one gifted, one purchased at bottom clearance at Carter's) of winter coats in storage for future years. The snow pants, in size 24 months, still fit from last winter as well, along with hats and mittens. We had three pairs of snow boots last winter - two in size 6 and one in size 5. Anna and Em are wearing the size 6 boots and Allie has been wearing a pair in size 8 (still a bit big) that I picked up on clearance last spring. The size 5 boots went to the girls' cousin Maggie!
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I didn't have time to explain this last night as I had two munchkins who had taken a much needed nap in the afternoon but wouldn't go to bed. And it was after 9:00 PM and they really needed to be in bed so Mommy had to shut down.

I am shamelessly self promoting my blog. I have registered over at Top Baby Blogs. It's just a blog listing and a way to gain more readers and/or find more blogs to read. They rank your blog according to how many clicks it receives. You can only click once a day. So that's all this button is for. You don't need to register or do anything time consuming - just click the button and then click again when the next page pops up. Thank you in advance to those of you who click.



I will probably have the button at the end of posts. Thanks again.