Snow-tober

Isn't it still fall? What's this white stuff falling from the sky? What started out as a laugh--snow in October became a nightmare.

The snow wasn't a total surprise. Weathermen in the NYC area said that we would get 3-6" of snow but that it wouldn't stick to the roadways. They were wrong. The snow came and fell fast. It was a white out and it was wet, heavy snow that stuck to the trees and caused many to topple over into power lines, houses and roadways.

Chloe had a swim meet about 20 miles away on Saturday. I kissed her goodbye and loaded her on the bus with the rest of the swim team just as the snow began to fall. Matt was in W. Virginia racing for the weekend and he had my SUV. I had the 911 turbo. I don't care what the clever P*orsche commercial says about it being all-wheel drive and a "snowmobile", it's not.

I headed out to watch Chloe swim and as soon as I got on the highway I knew it was bad. I called our Y and asked if the swim meet had been canceled and the bus turned around. It hadn't. Cut to the chase...I was in super freak out mode. Cars were sliding all over the highway, trees were falling on the highway and it was quickly becoming bumper cars as people were crashing into one another. I made the decision to turn around after a tree fell into a road blocking any further progression. It wasn't until 2.5 hours after Chloe left on the bus that I received a call that she was ok and the swim meet was canceled (duh). I wasn't back home yet so I headed to the Y to wait for Chloe's bus.

Chloe and I made it back to our house safely, despite dodging the fallen trees and downed power lines, to discover our power was out. I made dinner by flashlight---thank goodness for gas stoves! It was getting cold in the house since we had no heat and we made a fire in the fireplace. The kids played on the iPad until it ran out of battery power and then we broke out the cards. It was a nice evening until the house filled with smoke and the fire department showed up. It was  nice to know that our security system can still call for help even when the power is out. We had three firemen (in the yellow firetruck!) and a police officer wandering our house checking the carbon monoxide levels (which were ok) and debating why our chimney wasn't drafting. After an hour of debate, they threw a D*uraflame on the fire to make it burn hot and all was well. Until they showedd up an hour later---it was just to check in and see we were still doing ok. Yea, we live in a nice town where firefighters come by to check in.

We slept under lots of covers listening to the tunes of police cars heading to downed power lines and the "chirp chirp" of all of our safety devices alerting us that the battery power was low. All was right with the world Sunday as the snow began to melt and our power returned about 24 hours after it went off. Matt returned safely later in the evening.

A fall landscape covered in snow.

I inadvertently took this picture of myself while I was trying to answer the phone hoping it was one of the swim coaches to tell me Chloe was ok. You can see the amount of snow falling from the window.

The kids eating and playing in front of the fire.

The fire that cause us so much grief.

Oliver in the dark.

Chloe in the dark.

Many are still without power and school will be closed on Halloween. Chloe's school has two trees down in the front, one on the power line. This is not a Halloween we will soon forget.