The Weather Outside is Frightful...

Our house

Chip's truck

Our street - after being plowed on Sunday

Normally, I tend to think that the news hypes up the weather - they will talk about a severe snow storm and we only get a few inches. Well, this time, the weather lived up to the hype it received. The news said we would get about a foot of snow beginning Friday afternoon and ending Saturday afternoon. In reality, two and half feet of snow is what fell from the sky. The official reading is 21.3 inches, making this snow storm the 4th largest in Pittsburgh history - the last snow storm of this magnitude was in 1993.

So, how did this Texan cope with all that snow? At first, I was mesmerized by how beautiful it was and looked forward to a lazy weekend in my pj's with my two favorite guys. I thought about how exciting the snow will be next year when we can play with Hayden in it. Then, at 1:30 on Saturday morning, we lost power. I freaked - we have a six week old baby and a vehicle snowed in with streets that weren't plowed. I have experienced power outages in the blazing heat of Texas, but not in the cold. Luckily, the low was in the upper 20's, so it wasn't SO scary. We bundled Hayden up in his fleece sleeper, socks, hat, fuzzy blanket and slept with him on our chests to make sure he stayed warm. At 9:00, the temperature in our bedroom was 60 and it was 54 downstairs. We text messaged three of our friends who lived nearby to see if they had power. They all did and invited us over. Chip went outside and started digging out the Durango (thank God we have a 4x4 vehicle and that Chip knows how to drive in this madness). Our friends that live a half mile up the road invited us to their house. It took us until 10:30 to get there due to Chip having to dig out the car and driveway and then to drive there on unplowed streets. I have never been so grateful for power!







Chip went back and forth between their house and ours several times to check on the girls (they were doing fine upstairs where the temperature stayed around 60). When the 9 o'clock news said the low would be 8, Chip headed to our house to get the dogs and bring them to our friends to stay in their basement. When he got to our house and our power was back on, so he came back and picked Hayden and I up. I am very thankful that our power company had our power back on so quickly and that we have friends who took us in.







Now, the news is predicting another 10 inches by tomorrow afternoon. This is crazy! Hayden and I will stay house bound - poor Chip has to go to work. The snow is gorgeous though - it does look like we are in a snow globe. I will be thankful when Hayden and I go to Texas to visit next week - we need to thaw out!


:::

On another snow related note, how is it that the news finds the most interesting people to interview? They did a segment on people who didn't have power and two of the people interviewed had little ones! One had a three month old and two younger kids and were using a kerosene heater to warm their home. NOT SAFE! Another family had a one year old with sickle cell amenia and couldn't have his breathing treatments since they had no power. My heart just breaks for those kids to be in such cold houses. Chip and I had talked and, if we couldn't get out, were going to call 911 to come get us and take us to a hotel. Once we saw the news, we realized that there are warming stations all over the city for those without power. I have never heard of such a thing - but Chip knew about them.