Definitely a wintery wonderland!

Snow is on everyone's mind these days, as it seems to be impossible to avoid. This last round of storms (hopefully the last for 2008!) began here in Boston around one o'clock in the afternoon on Friday the 19th and went straight through Sunday night. It never once stopped precipitating, though the snow let up for a little while on Sunday to make room for rain and freezing rain. What a joy. Actually, the snow was (and is still) quite pretty, but I imagine the beauty will soon wear off.

Day One - Friday, December 19th:
Doug and I started the weekend off at about 5:30 (after early release from work - yay snow!) by shoveling the driveway. We already had about 3-4 inches by this point. We did this to a) keep up with the snowfall so we weren't shoveling through 2 feet of it, and b) so that we could go to the mall and take advantage of the lack of crowds to get our Christmas shopping done. As you can see, it was really coming down.

We called the mall before we left to see if it was open, and we got a message saying yes, indeed, the mall was open. We made our way there, arriving at about 7:30, only to discover that most stores had already closed, and those that hadn't would be closing at 8. Great! Here are some shots of us driving to the mall, getting gas, and discovering that the mall was closing. I'll say this - if the mall had been open its regular hours, it would have been a great time to shop - no one was there!


Day Two - Saturday, December 20th:
After being rejected by the mall on Friday night, we decided to get up early on Saturday, shovel, and then head to the mall early in the day to avoid afternoon crowds. This was a good plan, too, but it took us a lot longer to shovel our driveway, steps, and walkways than planned. Luckily, Sasha was keeping an eye on us to make sure that we didn't keel over from shoveling-induced chest pains. Next item on Must Purchase list - snowblower! (You'll be happy to know, though, that even arriving at the mall at noon was early enough... we got a parking spot without any problem and were able to finish up our shopping.)


Day Three: Sunday, December 21st:
Okay, enough already. I woke up on Sunday only to find it STILL SNOWING. While my initial thought was, "Hey cool!", other thoughts quickly followed: "More shoveling?" "Where are we going to put all of this snow?" "Will we have to go to work tomorrow?" "Will our roof cave in from all of this snow weight?" "Do we have enough ice melt" "More shoveling??" Since it was Sunday and our shopping was done, we had no need to rush out and shovel. We hung around, did chores, tried to stay warm (baby, it was cold outside!), and watched the Patriots game before venturing out again to make our (hopefully) final attempt at shoveling. Our neighbor had kindly snowblowed some of our driveway early in the morning, but by the time we got out there in the evening there was another 5 or 6 inches of fresh snow, and now a layer of crusty ice... because yes, it was now raining/freezing rain. This weather was trying our patience, but being resilient New Englanders, we layered up and headed out to face the elements. We ended up making two huge piles of snow, one almost as tall as me. If we get any more snow, we won't have anywhere to put it!







Needless to say, we survived the storms, and we (thank you, thank you!) didn't lose power or heat or anything like that. If this snow can last just another couple of days (I hear there's rain in the forecast for Christmas Eve) we'll even be lucky enough to have a white Christmas - but would I be crazy to wish for a little fresh snow to fall on Christmas day?