Snowed In

Today we had a blizzard go through the Washington area. A real one! Kyle and I have decided it can now be called a "real" winter. Generally, an inch of snow in the area can be a cause of panic....I guess when you get 21" it's acceptable. Before the storm hit people stormed the grocery stores to stock up.

Apparently the grocery stores were completely out of milk, ground beef, and eggs. I only made a short trip into Wal-Mart last night after going to see Avatar, so that we could buy a new kennel for our cats before the trip, so I cannot personally attest to the state of the grocery stores. However, I did notice that the food isles at Wal-Mart were in a state of disarray (and oddly enough, they seemed to be out of ketchup).

At the moment I can hear the plow making its way through our parking lot for at least the 4th time today. From the window you can see our car. There is literally an unbroken blanket of snow from the road in the back of the car to the road in the front of the car....you can't see underneath it (except along the sides). I've watched a few silly people try to dig their cars out. They must have somewhere important to go to brave the roads, or they feel spending 45 minutes digging their car out from under the snow is a good way to spend a snowy day. Tomorrow I plan to take some pictures.

Youth Group Craziness and Christmas Trains

Last night we went to the church for the youth group "spy" night. Mostly, we played various games that had a spy twist to them. During the first game, which was basically capture the flag, I got elbowed in the nose. It wasn't pretty, and I spent the rest of the evening hanging out in the kitchen with an ice pack on my face. Luckily, the damage was minimal, and other than a tender face and a small bruise it wasn't too bad. Kyle and I have decided that next time we are going to wear helmets with face masks, since last time his glasses got smashed. Hopefully nothing more will happen of that nature...at least for a while.

The following are some pictures from our trip to Chicago for Thanksgiving. On Friday we went to the Chicago Botanic Gardens to see their train exhibit. The cool part is that all of the buildings are made out of organic matter (like acorns and stuff).

These are just a few of the photos that I took. The buildings were all Chicago landmarks. The little kids were fascinated by all the trains and the "snow" that was falling from the ceiling. It was a much better way to spend Black Friday in my opinion.

Today it snowed! It feels like an actual winter day, which for Virginia's mild winter was a nice change. We put our tree up and enjoyed the opportunity to feel festive. While we were putting up the ornaments, Sphinx started to chew on the nativity set (more specifically the head of a wise man). Needless to say, we had to move the nativity to a cat safe area. Anyhow, here is a picture of our tree this year. I'm hoping that the cats don't manage to knock it over this year...