Now THIS is more like it!

The first thing people always said to us when we told them we were moving to Michigan was, "You know it snows there, right?" The smart-alec in me always wanted to pop back with a smart-alec remark, but I usually just smiled sweetly and said, "Yes, we know." Truthfully, I was just glad he didn't call us somewhere HOT, like Africa. :-) (I am really praying God will continue to work that smart-alec streak out of me.) When we got here, the first thing we did was to prepare for snow.

We gathered all of the snow gear we needed (even though we didn't know what most of it looked like). Actually, the first two times we went shopping, there was nothing out yet. My friend, Laurie, who has lived here her entire life, had agreed to go shopping with me, and even in her sweetness could not resist the urge to tease me about being frantic about preparing for "that blizzard that's probably gonna come next week". (...in the middle of October). Before we even left Georgia, I was looking through Land's End trying to find coats (because I thought that was the only place to get warm clothing), e-mailing Laurie asking her if I needed the coats rated for -10 degrees to 5 degrees, or the ones graded -25 degrees to 0? She finally e-mailed me back. It said, "I am writing this with a smile. I guess I never thought about what it would be like for a Georgia peach to move north". I now know that snow boots, coats, sleds, and any other snow gear you could ever want are sold here at Wal-Mart. :-) The first time I ever saw snow boots, we were in Target. We came upon a rack of boots that didn't look like regular boots. After a few seconds of the girls and I standing there, staring at those boots, waiting for the neon sign to flash 'we are snow boots',  a woman came down the aisle. I said, "Ma'am, I don't mean to sound dumb, but are these snow boots?. She said, "Yes, and your going to NEED them!" Okay....so we all started taking our shoes off and trying on boots.

With all this preparation, we were fully prepared for whatever may come our way (we thought) by the middle of October. October came and went with no snow. November came and went with one little snow. It finally became a joke at our house about this "alleged" snow. Jeff would tease the people at work about this "alleged" snow. We did get some at the beginning of December, and we thought, "Well this isn't so bad." We truly could not figure our what all of the hype was about. While we were in Georgia for three weeks, there were some significant storms here in Michigan. We know our power went out, at least for a little while, because of the evidence we found in our freezer :-), but we still had not seen anything worse than what was here at the beginning of December. While in Georgia, people would ask about the snow and we would say, "It's not so bad".

Hah!! Well, yesterday, we got it! Two feet in a 24 hour period. These were all taken fairly early in the storm.

 

This is our back yard. By the end of the day, you could not get to the door of that playhouse. The girls have had a goal of the snow reaching the bottom of the swing....we reached that goal yesterday!

 

 

This was the view from the front door.

 

Emilie LOVES the snow. She's always the first one in it...and usually not as 'dressed' as I would prefer. 

  
Megan was determined to play outside with Emilie, but she had to do some major high-stepping to get through the snow.
 

Our snow babies. :-)

Let's just say that these southerners, who have been trying very hard not to be southern about this whole snow issue, are at home in PJ's in front of a fire drinking hot chocolate being VERY SOUTHERN...and we like it. :-)

We have learned that :

1. It is okay to go get milk from the store. If you don't, your northern friends with a plow have to bring you some in the middle of the storm....your northern friends who are barely even sweating the storm.

2. You never "make a run for it" in your house shoes in this kind of snow.

3. It is time to start praying for a snow plow because neither one of us is physically equipped for what it takes to shovel 2 feet of snow out of the driveway.

4. Aren't there people in Honolulu that need Jesus?

Have a blessed day!
Jeannie