Snow! In December!

We've lived here a combined total of over a decade now and I've never seen snow in Williamsburg before Christmas. It was so exciting to get some this month! I think we officially got around 5 inches, but it hung around for almost a week and was very wet and heavy when it fell. I was scheduled to work on Saturday (the day before it snowed) and Monday (the day after) that week. My mom was to come down Sunday night to help watch the kids on Monday and she braved the snow to do it, and I'm quite sure regrets it! It was a terribly dangerous drive, and by the time she arrived we had lost power. We were without power for about 30 hours - basically from before she arrived through after she left. Everyone was quite cold. At least we had plenty of candles and a gas fireplace!

Sunday before church it had just started snowing...

After church it was really coming down, but it was supposed to stop and turn into rain by 2pm.

That afternoon though, the girls and I went down to the other side of the neighborhood and sledded in a neighbor's yard who randomly told us once we could. They don't have very young kids anymore (only one at home now in high school) and were so kind! The man brought out his dog and gave the kids dog sled rides down the street, his daughter came out and played the entire time, and then they invited our whole crew in for hot chocolate - and we had NEVER met them before! They are a very sweet family and showed us such wonderful hospitality. Also randomly, the house turned out to be the childhood home of one of the couples in our community group, so it was kind of fun to be in the house he grew up in! It's a small town we live in, and seems to get smaller with each passing day.

By the time we headed home, I couldn't push the stroller through the snow anymore and it was still coming down. Since the trees hadn't all lost their leaves yet, the trees had to bear more weight (surface area) and while we were sledding we kept hearing and seeing branches crack and fall. One of the perils of being in an older neighborhood...

The power came back on right before the kids' bedtimes Monday night, so thankfully we didn't have to sleep at someone else's house (which was the plan because our house was about 50 degrees inside by that point). We've lived in this house for 6 years and have never lost power for more than an hour or so and now we've lost power for over 24 hours twice in 3 months (the hurricane in October and snow in December).