Snowstorm in Georgia!

Last week on Sunday night it started snowing at around 10:00. Of course right away everyone started calling and emailing to spread the word that everything would be shut down on Monday, and so we were so excited to have a snow day! Well, it turns out that snow day turned into a snow week! The public school systems were closed for the entire week; my school was closed until Thursday (and even then there were about 7 total kids in our 3 year old class); and Chad worked from home the entire week except for Thursday, when he braved the roads (which resulted in an hour and a half commute--twice as long as usual). Needless to say he chose to work from home again on Friday. :)

Despite the fact that it only snowed 6 inches in one night, everything stayed closed because (unlike the usual snow we get here in Georgia) it didn't melt! We don't have too many snow plows around here, and so the usual protocol for snowy weather is shut everything down until it melts. Well, this time around it took a week to melt! And the craziest part of all is that all the snow turned into ice. Six inches of snow turned into six inches of ice. Scary!!

Despite the fact that Chad and I have both lived several years--almost his entire life, in Chad's case--in snowy-winter climates, we had never seen anything like this before. By the third day all the fields and yards of undisturbed snow resembled ice hockey rinks! It was incredible. On Thursday I thought I'd just walk through the snow to get the mail, only to be reminded that it wasn't snow anymore, and about fell on my hiney!

To get an idea of this transformation, look at this picture of our neighborhood the first snow day: (I love my ear-warmer Michelle! I've gotten lots of compliments on it!)

And what it looked like on the fourth snow day: One thing that this experience showed me is something I did know before, but it was still nice to have a confirmation of: Chad and I genuinely like each other. You'd think we'd get sick of each other after spending three days in a row together in the same house--and mostly the same room--but not so! Well, I guess I can't speak for Chad, but I loved it! :) Although Chad did have to work from home, I got to work on projects in the same room as he was, and so we got a lot of good chatting time in. Plus each night we watched one of the Bourne movies! And we got to eat all our meals together. I'd call it a very successful week.

One of our favorite parts of the snow week was being home when the birds visited our bird feeder right outside our living room window, which makes for great bird watching. The cardinals always look so bright, but this time of year they look especially bright and beautiful. They are really shy, so it's hard to get a good shot of them, but here is what we got:

Notice the other red cardinal in the trees in the background: We love our cardinals so much!!! And we love these cute birds too: We love our home and our backyard, and it was really nice to spend some quality time together. However, by Thursday we were both happy to get out of the house. :) Happy Winter Everyone!