Anyone want snow? We have a bit to spare!

Oh my stars, has January been a prolific month when it comes to snow.  We're about an hour outside of New York City on Long Island and I just heard on the news that we right now stand as the snowiest January in history for Central Park (and most other areas around here) and with just .9 inches more of snow, this will be the snowiest month in HISTORY (well, since they started keeping track of these things)!!  All this week we kept hearing about a "disruptive snow event" on Wednesday but it just seemed like this would be the kind of storm that they could only properly predict close to the event itself.  Well, Tuesday night, they said that we would have flurries in the morning and then we'd have the afternoon with nothing and by rush hour, it would start up again and give us significant snowfall - 4-8" was the predicted total.  They couldn't have been more wrong.

So it started snowing around 9 am yesterday.  The snow that was supposed to stop at noon finally stopped at 4.  The "little to no accumulation" ended up being 4".  Then we DID have a lull for a little while only to have freezing rain step in around 9 pm.  By 11 pm when I went to bed, it was white out conditions!!  By now, they were saying that we should see an additional 4-8" of snow.  GULP!!  So off to bed we went.  I took my computer so that I could check for school closings (both my girls commute to college) and when I woke up at 3 am, I decided to check the computer - nothing for my girls but lots of delayed openings.  I decided to get up to see what I could see and I just about had my chin hit the kitchen floor when I looked out the front window.  My car is a Dodge Grand Caravan but it was looking more like the Sprinter - it was covered in no less than 15" of snow.  I could see the once bare driveway now had snow up to the top of my wheels!!  ALL of the trees were drooping heavily from the weight of the snow.  I went back to bed for a few hours and then got up at 5:30 to see the damage.  19" of snow.  Fortunately my one daughter's college was cancelled but the other daughter's was just a delayed opening at 10:30.  UGH!!  We figured we'd send her on the train but the problem was the train system had shut down!  Finally at 7:30, they too decided to cancel school for the day.  Thank heavens because it was 12:30 before our driveway was finally fully snowblowed, shoveled and scraped.

So, without further adeau, I'll share some photos with you.  The "before" pics were taken yesterday afternoon after the 4" snow and then of course the "afters" were taken today.  Enjoy the winter wonderland!!

My back patio set before and after (the poles above support an awning in the summer)

My street and mailbox - not perfectly the same picture but you can see the difference in the mailbox.  The second picture shows the snow plow that was stuck overnight as well.

My minivan in the driveway.  When the snow first started at 9, the driveway was complete blacktop.  That's our goal in the winter - to keep it as clear and safe as possible.  So you can see in the first picture, it's about 4" on the ground.  

The children's little picnic table in our backyard

 Now it's just a lump!  LOL

Just a pretty view of the backyard.  Those branches out there that are down to the snow are usually about 8' off the ground.

My two little ones, Robby (10) and Joanna (8) on the driveway.  You can see it's almost to their waists!!