Catch up!

A lot has happened since I wrote last. Here's a snippet of what we've been up to.

We decided to get a real tree this year. The last couple of years we've had an artificial one, which has been fine since the kids, or should I say Anise, was just too young and way too curious for her own good for things like real trees. I'm positive that last year she would have tried to climb it. I'm not totally convinced she won't this year. This year I decided that with the new house with the window that was made to put a Christmas tree in, we should have a real one. And I missed the smell. So, I scoped out trees at all the local grocery stores and we found the one. It is the fullest real tree I've ever had. I'm used to the ones that you have to load with decorations so you can't see all the branches and trunk - kind of Charlie Brown like. Not this one. We actually took decorations off because it was too much! Well, see for yourself.

---That's real, baby---

I also got all my nativity sets put up. I didn't realize that I have as many as I do. 5 on the shelf, no kids allowed to go near ones, and 2 that the kids can have a free for all with. As you can see, Anise is taking advantage of the free for all.






So now the Christmas music is out, the house is decorated with lights, and all things Christmas, and there are even a couple of presents under the tree. We are almost ready!

Last weekend, we had a storm. Actually it was a blizzard. A real good southern Alberta winter blizzard. It was unbelievable. We got quite a bit of snow, but it was the wind that did the most damage. Saturday morning, we woke up to this:

---Our front yard. At least what you can see of it. It's kind of hard to tell in the picture, but that drift is about 3 feet deep, and covers our entire driveway, yard and road in front of the house.---

---We also got about 1.5 feet of snow on our covered deck in the back---



---A view from our bedroom window. This was after a lot of the plastered snow had slid off---

Shortly after seeing all this, reality set in that we no longer live on a main busy road and bus route, where the plows would be coming, and the sanding trucks would be driving. We now live in a quiet cul de sac. If we wanted to go somewhere, we were on our own. It was cold, but not brutally bad (that would come later) and we spent most of the day pushing out neighbors who got stuck in the drifts, and shoveling the driveway over and over again. And by we, I mean Sean:

---it's a good thing I bought us a new snow shovel last month!---

Sunday, we got a call letting us know that the last two hours of Church were being cancelled, and sacrament meeting was going to be held for those who could get out of their houses. We were not one of them. So we stayed home, watched a movie about the birth of the Savior, and tried to stay warm.

Monday, the wind chill was -52, but school was still on! Seriously, I know we're Canadian, but come on! Luckily for me, Sean was able to get the van to start, and took Kaden to school in the morning. By the time Anise was ready for preschool it had warmed up (to -32) so I took her because I knew she would be mad if she missed school, and quite honestly we were all getting cabin fever and I couldn't wait for a break from the kids. The rest of the week has been about the same. The forecast calls for another 10 cm of snow today, so we'll just keep digging ourselves and others out.

So the roads are slippery, the wind is cold and the snow is plentiful, but we've survived our first winter storm without a road plow to keep us dug out.

How's this blizzard been for you?