The Blizzard of 2011

When we moved to Texas, Court assured me that Hurricanes were rare. In his 26 years, he'd only been through one, and his family didn't even evacuate. Hurricane Rita was an anomaly. Of course, in the 3 years we lived there, we had 2 hurricanes! Gustav and Ike. So, I guess it should have been no surprise that our first winter in Chicago we'd experience one of the top 5 worst Blizzards in Chicago history. Interestingly, I was about Meredith's age, living not too far from here when another of the top 5 Blizzards in Chicago history hit. So, I get to claim surviving 2 blizzards in my lifetime! Let's just hope there aren't any more! But I won't hold my breath. I've also been told that tornadoes here are possible, but fairly rare...I REALLY hope I don't have to experience one of those! Knock on wood! But, anyway...

To be honest, the Blizzard of 2011 really wasn't THAT bad. It started snowing about 3:00 in the afternoon. The wind really started to pick up about 9:00 in the evening and it pretty much blew all night long. And the snow never stopped...from 3pm to 9am it dumped on us. I was worried about losing power, but Court reassured me that since most of the power lines around here are buried in the ground, we'd probably be okay. And he was right. The nice thing about the Blizzard was that Court got to stay home from work for the day and we played in the snow, drank hot chocolate and just hung out together as a family. It was kind of nice. Of course, we live in an apartment complex, so we didn't really have to scoop any snow...just enough to get the building door open and to get our cars out. I think it would have been worse if we'd had to dig out a driveway. And, I give kudos to the state of Illinois for their ability to clear roads so quickly. By the afternoon, we were able to get around town without too much difficulty. But there was a TON of snow piled up along the sides of the roads and in every parking lot for quite a while. I got tired of looking at it! Thankfully, all that snow is gone now.

Meredith trying to get through the huge snow bank
right out side our apartment building entrance.

This little natural snow sculpture was right
next to Court's car. If you look closely, you can
sort of see a bald eagle in it. I thought it was cool
looking. Amazing what the wind can create.

Our cars were buried. The snow fell in such a
way that the snow was really high on one side of
the cars, and not so much on the other.

Court and Meredith exploring post-Blizzard. They
plowed the parking lot several times throughout
the night, so that helped to keep the parking lots
easy to walk around in.

Meredith didn't really love getting snow on her face.Little girl in a sea of white.

Later in the afternoon after they got the sidewalks
somewhat cleared. I like this photo because you can
see how high the snow was in comparison to Meredith.
And you can see Court in the background working on
getting our cars dug out.