I have lived in Connecticut all of my life and I have never seen as much snow from one storm as I did this year on February 8th and 9th.  I can recall 18 inches, 2 feet.  Winters where it seemed to snow nearly every other day.  But this storm!  It topped them all! It was something to say the least!  Something I won’t forget!

The weather men on TV sure did hype this one up.  But then again they hype them ALL up!  Most of the time their predictions seem to just be way off.  While I wanted to take this one seriously… I just wasn’t so sure.  The storm started early in the day on Friday.  For a long time it snowed and snowed, but nothing seemed to really be building up!  The picture above was taken at about 9am.

This picture was taken just about 8 hours later.  A difference for sure, but not a huge one.  Where was the crazy wind and the insane snow levels.  Ok, ok…. the weathermen did say it’d get worse over night!  So I waited.  Around 10 PM it certainly did pick up.  The wind howled like crazy.  Peeking out of the windows I saw something I had never seen before.  The snow had become so deep so fast that it didn’t look as if the roads existed.  It was just flat smooth snow, blowing snow, drifts of snow, as far as the eye could see.  In any storm in the past you could still make out generally where the road was.  If it wasn’t for the stop sign and the utility poles that would have been impossible.

The next morning as the sun rose we started to take in what had really happened over night.  My poor dogs… they are just 25lbs or so.  This snow was no match for them.  Take a look at Odie’s pathetic face!

This is what morning light revealed.  That fence in the back is  3 1/2 feet tall.  All of our doors were blocked by the snow.  It was just… unreal.  Do you know we don’t own a snow blower?  Honestly, my husband is still young and healthy.  My boys are growing steady.  Before we know it we’ll have 3-4 able bodies that can clear a driveway in no time.  Plus, we don’t have a garage.  A snow blower would have been snowed in in the shed.  On occasion my husband would help the neighbor dig out and she’d lend him her snow blower.  Wouldn’t you know she came over to say her goodbyes on Friday as the storm picked up?  She had sold the house and was leaving for good.  Ooops… so much for that idea!  So it was going to be nothing but muscle for this one!

Everyone bundled up and headed outside.  What a wonderland for the kids.  Not that they could walk!  That was funny all on it’s own!

I’m impressed by how much Joyanna adores the snow.  At this age her brothers cried whenever we took them out.  While she did have her moments.  She generally LOVES it!  ”It’s FUN Mommy!”  She said that a lot!

Eventually the town truck came by and plowed our road.  That was great!  So many people waited DAYS to see a plow!  We were lucky!  Except… they only plowed one side of the road!  THE OTHER SIDE!  So in order to get out we had to shovel an extra 20 feet into the road of 3 foot high snow.

After a total of 9 hours of shoveling, over two days, we still had at least 4-5 hours to go before we could even think of getting a vehicle out!  I joked about the situation over Facebook.  Well wouldn’t you know it… a friend saw what I wrote and sent her husband, her son, and their very very nice snow blower over to our home to rescue us.  They got the job done in all of 40 minutes.  I about cried when they pulled up!  What a blessing!  I am still so grateful!

But even once we were dug out it still took several more days before the streets were truly clear enough to make driving really reasonable.  Some schools in my state closed school for nearly the whole week.  When I told Noah that he said… “That’s ok Mommy! We homeschool! We have everything we need right here!”  Gotta love him!

So that’s the crazy story of the Blizzard of 2013.  Were you snowed in?  How long did it take you to get unburied?  I’d love to know!