The Blizzard That Wasn't (But Was Close Enough)

Schnikeys! What a nasty weekend! The weather reports warned of super-terrible storms and wind chills, so people in the area started pre-emptorily canceling weekend events as early as Friday. As it turns out, things didn't get so bad in Dickinson as predicted (nor so bad as they turned out across the rest of ND), so most everything here could have gone on as scheduled, and we die-hard Nor' Dakotans would have just gone out a few minutes earlier to warm up the car and driven through the snow drifts to get there anyway.

Susan went to the grocery store yesterday morning to buy up all their baking ingredients so that she and the girls could spend all day yesterday and today doing The Christmas Baking. It was certainly much nicer for them to be inside all day baking and staying warm involved together in a family Christmas activity. I braved the weather yesterday to head to the office to work on some student evaluations due Monday, but I didn't go back to campus today, instead sequestering myself in our home office to finish the evaluations while the ladies kept the house filled with the scents of baked goods.

Our church's Sunday school Christmas program, scheduled for this morning, was postponed until next weekend; however, the hand bell choir, scheduled to play for this morning's services, fulfilled its obligations, so we had to have Suzanna at church for that by 7:30 A.M.! I bundled up in the dark of early morn and went out into the bitter cold to snow blow the driveway so that Susan could get Suzanna to church on time, and then I delivered Abigail and Hillary to the church in time for them to join Susan and Suzanna. Then I returned home to finish the snow removal and then come in to thaw. We were supposed to have a Sons of Norway meeting and Christmas supper today (remember?), but that was canceled due to the weather. Down side: we were planning to take along Susan's grandma, Laura, and she had really been looking forward to it. Up side: once everyone was back from church, we hunkered down and didn't have to go out into the cold again all day long.

While out and about yesterday before the worst of the snow and cold descended upon us, I stocked up on firewood. It was a delight both last night and this evening to have a fire crackling in the fireplace while we gathered to light the Advent candles and read our nightly Advent devotions. The girls like to snuggle in and read by the light of the fireplace. Last night after devotions, they laid down with a Christmas music book and sang a capella while roasting their li'l' chestnuts by the open fire. Wanna hear what we heard?