Happy Valentine's Day!

Let your sweeties know how much you love them :-)

Free Schtuff!

So there's this great little dog store nearby called "Natural Healing Whole Dog Wellness."  We love it for their top quality lines of natural, raw and grain-free foods as well as Eco-friendly toys.  The store also provides swim therapy for dogs after surgery, sickness or even just for fun.

Well the other day they had their anniversary celebration and gave away free goody bags to the first 30 families to visit the store!  Of course we made sure to be one of those families... and here is what we got:

All free!  Isn't that fabulous?  Make sure to check out their website here!

The Morning After the Blizzard

Isn't it refreshing to wake up to freshly fallen snow?  It's so pure and untarnished.  And the morning after the blizzard we got two feet of beautiful white snow!  Of course that meant a LOT of shoveling... but I didn't mind since Kevin did most of that :-)  What a great husband!

I decided to head out on another walk before the shoveling began to capture some of the snowy sights.

 This is what greeted me as soon as I opened the back door.  Love it!

The steps had a foot of snow on them...

 

...good thing I had my boots on!

Since it was so windy during the storm the height of the snow varied a lot from place to place.  This side of the house by far ended up with the most snow.  It was basically one big drift.

Just to give you an idea of how deep it was... our air conditioning unit is in there somewhere.

This drift was almost higher then our fence!

Our poor vase got swallowed up in the snow.  And without a garage... our cars looked pretty much the same.

Above you can see Kevin's car...

...and this was my car!

Maybe we should have invested in a snow blower :-)

Getting out of the yard was the toughest part.  But the plows had been working all night so once I made it to the road it was pretty easy to walk around.

Gorgeous!

Notice our gate, steps and window boxes!  We couldn't even open the front door!

 

And here are a few more of the pretty winter sights that I saw on my walk around the neighborhood...

 By the time I got back Kevin had started the process of digging out our cars. 

I took these photos after he had been at it for over an hour!

 It took him more then two and a half hours just to clear out enough snow to move our cars!  What a stud!

Don't worry, I shoveled a little too :-)  Since Kevin didn't have boots I had made him this path out to the driveway.  Then I decided to do a fun little photo shoot with Lucy.

 

At least I thought it was fun...

  

...but Lucy is not a fan of anything cold...

...so she did NOT think it was fun.

But this last photo won her a free dog coat at a local pet store!  We haven't picked it out yet but I'll make sure to take some photos of her wearing it once we do.

See you later and stay warm out there!

The Blizzard of 2011

It finally came!  The storm of the  c e n t u r y !  And I loved every second of it!

Right around 2:30PM on Tuesday the storm really started to pick up, so they let us leave work 2 hours early (yay!)  Unfortunately everyone else in the area also left work at the same time so traffic was awful with or without the snow.  As my dad drove me home (Thanks Dad!) we witnessed the fog of tiny snowflakes piling up fast.  Ben (my brother) drove past us in the other direction as we waited to turn through an intersection.  Ben didn't see me wave through the curtain of snow.

Thankfully my dad got me home safely and Kevin followed shortly after that.  Thus began our night of hunkering down.  My wonderful husband had stopped at the store a few days prior to stock up on groceries in anticipation of "the big one."  So we had everything we needed to make two delicious pizzas for dinner.  Kevin's was classic style while mine was hummus and bell pepper pizza. 

After relaxing and eating our yummy dinner I (of course) thought it would be fun to go out in the blizzard.  So while I bundled up, Kevin put on a pea coat and sneakers.

We got as far as the end of the block to take this picture when Kevin decided he needed to turn back :-)  My silly, non-bundling, tough guy.  So while he warmed up back inside with Lucy, I continued my walk. 

It was so peaceful out.  The wind was strong but I was still warm dressed in all my layers.  The only light came from the street lamps and when I looked up at them I could see the tiny snowflakes rush by with the wind.  The height of the storm hadn't hit yet... I had about an hour or so before it arrived. 

As I rounded the block I could see the light from our house through the trees.  I remember feeling so thankful at this point.  There I was, purposly walking into this treacherous weather, when all over the country there were people who would have given anything to get out of it.  I truly felt blessed to be able to return to a warm house and loving family once I'd had enough of the cold.

There wasn't another person to be seen.  Everyone was tucked away in their homes as they waited out the storm.

After walking another few minutes I came upon a local graveyard.

Is it strange that I love little old graveyards like this?  As I walk by and see the names on the crumbling markers I can't help but wonder about their untold stories of the past.  So much history locked away forever.

At this point the cold wind was slowly creeping into my bones so I decided to head for home.

Walking up to the front of the house I saw that we already had a lot of shoveling to do in the morning... and the worst of the storm still hadn't arrived yet.

But I'll save my photos from the morning after the blizzard for my next post since this one has gotten pretty long already...