Snowed in and snowed in some more

We live in Northern Virginia, not the North Pole.

I heard someone say it best when they said they felt like we have been living in a snow globe that won't stop shaking!

I had not been out of the house in 8 eight days. Not once. It began to feel like our own episode of the Shining (they are in a hotel, snowed in and strange things start to happen). We did make it out this afternoon and found walls of snow where the street had been carved out. The walls taller than the car.

We were doing pretty well, even after 36 inches of snowed came to our house. We had power, hosted a neighborhood "snowed in" potluck, even had a meeting (still need your input!) at my house. But then the 2nd snow storm came bringing another 16 inches and intense strong winds. We lost power. The generator kicked on early that morning.

We looked outside, more snow every where, huge snow drifts that were 5 feet high. We were stuck. Emails from surrounding communities were coming in about road closures because snow plows were stuck in the gigantic drifts. There was no way we were getting out anytime soon. You could not tell where yards ended and the streets began.

That is when I started to get jittery. If something happened we could not get out nor anyone get in to help.

A family in the neighborhood, who lost power and does not have a generator, sent out an urgent email begging for help because they had a newborn baby, the house was getting too cold and they needed to get some place warm. We offered for them to come over, we live just one street over but the snow was too deep for them to make it to our house.

Thankfully the power came back on that afternoon. But we were still stuck, not a plow in sight.

I had a brief moment of panic when I went to flush Brayden's tube and it was filled with blood. Blood now?! In the middle of this?! I then realized/hoped there was an easy explanation and that his stomach was not bleeding. After looking him over, suctioning his stomach, I came to the conclusion that the blood came from him chewing his finger so much that it was bleeding and after chewing it the blood drained to his stomach. Thankfully since that moment no more blood.

We tried our best to enjoy it all. Check out the family blog (several posts) for pictures of the real action!