Wednesday, February 7, 2018

Our big snow!

I pray every year that we'll have at least one real snow. It's not that I just hanker for the snow myself (although, it does give me happy little fuzzy memories of Ukraine), but Claire LOVES a good snow. So, I always ask the Lord to send her one good snow. I didn't think it was going to happen this year, but y'all. I was WRONG.

About early mid-January, the forecast started showing that we might have some snow the next week. A few days later, the meteorologists started talking about it and mentioned that we might get upwards of 6 inches. That's a good-sized snow for North Carolina, but I was suuuuper skeptical, given that the temps were in the 50's when this news started popping up. 

The night before our snow was supposed to come, I got a migraine. Now, this pregnancy has caused MANY, MANY migraines, so a migraine in and of itself is not all that interesting. However. This migraine was a very specific type- one I learned to recognize while living in Ukraine. One of my migraine triggers is barometric pressure changes, so I can often tell when the weather is shifting or a storm is coming, but having lived all of my life in the southeast United States before moving to Ukraine, I had almost no experience with a really big snow and what that might mean on the migraine front. On the eve of my very first really big snow in Ukraine, I got a migraine that made me think I was about to meet Jesus. It was a very specific, very unfamiliar kind of pressure/pain/nausea that was similar to my regular migraines but not exactly the same. But it was awful. And, I became very familiar with that brand of migraine (Ukraine gets a lot of snow) and could predict with 100% accuracy when we were going to get a lot of snow.

All that to say, I got one of those migraines this January. 

And guys, we didn't get 6 inches of snow. We got 13 inches of snow. In North Carolina.

WHAT.


The beginning.


The first outing!

The timing of the snow was somewhat unfortunate, given that we were all rather sick. I had been in bed for almost a week with the flu (yes, I got the flu shot) and could barely move because of a pulled rib muscle (all the coughing), Brad had been battling a sinus infection + ear infection for several weeks, the girls had just come down with colds, and Lily had just started antibiotics for an ear infection. Needless to say, we were in fine form. I had reservations about letting them go outside being so sick, but we don't get this kind of snow often, so we bundled them up really well and limited their time outside to short intervals here and there. They weren't so sick that they couldn't enjoy it, but they were sick enough that they were ready when it was time to come in.

Thankfully, we actually had snowsuits the right size for each girl. We don't, however, have gloves or boots made for snow (we just don't need them enough to justify buying some each year/each size). So, we put sandwich bags under Lily's mittens and latex gloves over Claire's. This worked marvelously well. We tied grocery sacks around both girls' feet, put Claire in her rain boots, and just put Lily's non-snow-resistant boots on, trusting the bag and double layer of socks to do their jobs. Which they did. Everyone stayed quite dry.

My happy snow bear.

Snowman building.



Finished product. He never got decorated because everyone was ready to come in. Full disclosure, I put on all the layers and snow gear and went outside, but I only lasted about 5 minutes because I felt so bad. Brad snapped several pictures for me, though.

Lamp post. I'm sure Narnia was just waiting for us.

The stretch of yard that runs behind the row of houses we're a part of.

Piling higher and deeper. The girls' tricycle in barely sticking up out of it.

Mini snowman she made all by herself!

Snapped this the next morning. Claire was trying to rescue the tricycle.


Our "backyard" again.

The sun came out the next morning, and it wasn't nearly so cold. We all got out to try some sledding (we do, in fact, have a sled).



Front yard. That's the van. One day, I'd like to have a garage...

That's slightly over 13 inches. That is legit snow.

And this is how we spent most of our days trapped at home. We watched a LOT of movies. As you should when granted snow days. :)

Thank you, Lord, for a good snow for the girls! And thank you, also, that we didn't have to live in it for too, too long.

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