Blizzard 2010

The forecast for snow kept increasing in the amount as Friday wore on, but Pat and I thought it was the usual weathermen hype.  As it turns out, we woke up to this on Saturday morning, and this was just the beginning.

In total, Pat snow - blowed the driveway 5 times from 8am to 8pm.  Plus, once the plows finally came by at about 8 we had to shovel the bottom of the driveway because the snow was piled so high.  The plow was back again this morning and so was the snow blower! 

This was the first bout, maybe about 5-6".

Meanwhile, me and this peanut stayed nice and toasty in our pj's by the fireplace!

We did stupidly venture out to target at around 2pm.  Our street was so bad, we nearly got stuck a few times.  I'm not even sure if the plows had been out at all yet. 

You can just barely see the traffic lights in the photo below - they were about 50 yards ahead of us.  I read in the paper today that visibility was, at its worst, half of a city block.

At Target, there were a bunch of abandoned carts in snow drifts and evidently a lot of other crazy people with the same idea as us.

There is a giant drift just past our front porch. 

If it wasn't -20 deg windchill, we could have gone out and made a wicked snowman.  But I did make a snowball for Finley to hold (and eat).  I almost pulled a Dwight Shrute on Pat, but though better of it!

Today, the sun was shining bright but the wind was howling.  We didn't measure anything, but our grill lid is a good measuring stick.  Pat is hoping our deck falls off so he can get a new one...although he'll probably shovel it off once the temps warm up above zero again.

Finley's first blizzard was one for the record books:

-It was one of the top ten blizzards in MN history (16-20"). Compared to the famed Halloween blizzard of '91 which was 28", this one was not quite as strong.

-Snow plows were called off the roads because visibility was so low.

-MSP airport closed completely, which is super rare.

-The dome collapsed!!!!!!!!!!  We are going to next Monday's Vikings vs Bears game and I will not watch it outside at TCF stadium!

-The snow bank is up to our mailbox.

We can't wait until Finley is old enough to put on snow pants and boots to help us make make a fort out of the giant snow bank at the edge of our driveway.