Where Are We?

When we moved to Louisiana, I was told it rarely to never snows. We have told the kids over and over that they will likely not see snow unless we were visiting elsewhere. Well...here is what happens when you tell the kids one thing. You will usually be proven wrong! :)

This is the picture from our back porch when we got up Thursday. We had heard that there would be a wintery mix of snow, sleet and rain, but that there would be no accumulation because we were not going to get to freezing temps. Imagine our surprise!

I got Caleb up for school and told him to take the dog out. All the other kids were still sleeping. Caleb gets the dog and quickly comes running to our room screaming - as loud as he can - "WE ARE FLOODED WITH WHITE. THERE IS SN...WH....THE GROUND IS ALL WHITE WITH SNOW." And he starts dancing (really - he could not form the words he was so shocked).

Needless to say he wakes EVERYONE up. The boys are all screaming and dancing, except Bryce - who had disappeared. A few minutes later (and the older two still dancing and screaming) Bryce comes in decked out in his play clothes and rubber boots and coat.

At this point, I am watching the news and looking online and cannot find where their schools were closed. I told Bryce it looked like he still had school and he started bawling. He was supposed to do his first Christmas presentation of his school years. I tried to get him excited about ME being excited about seeing it. It didn't work. About 30 seconds later I finally found where the school was closed. That may have been more exciting to him than the actual fact there was snow!

Shortly after, our electricity went out (about 6:30 am). We have a fireplace, but the previous owners never bought the gas logs (you would have thought they would be in the fireplace when the house was built, but ANYWAYS). So, we ventured out in the snow (this is the ONE time Daddy's four wheel drive Jeep came in handy) and went to Home Depot. We got logs and came home and after a long time of working on it, another trip to Home Depot (unsuccessful at finding what we needed) Paul was able to get the logs working (with no gas leaks!!).

That was our only source of heat for the rest of the day. We kept waiting on the electricity to come back on. We went to bed with none. We all slept in our room with the door closed. The three oldest slept on the floor together with sleeping bags and three blankets. Andrew slept in our bed (which made for a LONG, little sleep night!).

When we got up the temperature in the house was 60. It was COLD! The boys had school and as soon as they got on the bus, Daddy and I left. We got home around 1 and the electricity had JUST come back on.

When all was said, Zachary had 5 1/2 inches of snow (Baton Rouge got about 3 1/2). The second highest amount in Louisiana. There was a parish at the Mississippi/Louisiana border that got 8 inches. Louisiana had not seen "any substantial snow fall" since 1988.

Is it a sign when as soon as we move here we have the worst hurricane in history blow through the area and we get major snow (for this area) when snow had not been seen in 20+ years?

It would have been much more enjoyable if we had had some electricity too!

Caleb shaking the snow out of the crepe myrtle. It was sagging and droopy!

Isaac playing in the snow

the view looking down our road The boys cuddling down for a COLD night!