ice, ice baby!

I can't procrastinate any longer...I took a million pictures of The Ice Storm and I've had a very tough time deciding which to include so I've been procrastinating my blog entry. And...of course there was that little, week-long power outage we had. Yes, that put a bit of a glitch in my mile-long holiday to-do list. I finally had to take this dang blog entry off my list and just get it done! So here is my version of The Ice Storm of 2008:
What we saw out our front window (the pine trees in front are completely decapitated):

What we saw out our back window:

It was like a literal neighborhood ice-land:


Every branch, every needle, every blade of grass, every leaf, EVERYthing was covered in ice:





So much so that most couldn't carry the weight of so much:






Unlike our poor neighbors across the street, we were lucky and only lost two trees (a pine and a birch):

But with destruction, there comes beauty:














And an afternoon snack:

And yes, there was that week-long power outage:

(note candles, flashlights, battery-powered radio and coolers -- all bare minimum necessities for a power outage, just as an fyi)





Since Jim and I wanted to keep from killing each other and our lil ones, we decided it was best that I take the kidlings to New York City to stay at my parents' place. A house that is 35º inside with no tv, internet or any way of cooking a meal for a week with a 2 and 4 year old would probably test the strongest of families, don't you think? Well, that's what we thought. So I took off for my fave city at Christmas, and this is what we saw:
Central Park


Museum of Natural History (with a skating rink that was NOT made of ice!)

Rockefeller Center


Radio City Music Hall

across from Radio City

And, how could we resist, Santa at Macy's



So no, the ice storm didn't exactly put a damper on our Christmas spirit, but it definitely made for some scrambling to catch up on baking, card sending, cleaning, laundering, and general daily maintenance of our lives this week before Christmas. Not to mention all of the Christmas parties and school festivities that were cancelled -- all of which were to be Soren's first. Oh well. There are going to be many more to come to make up for it I'm sure! (We also lost all six of our fish from our saltwater tank. So very sad...and so very expensive to replace....!)

Ok, so now I can check this entry off my list.... But I haven't even mentioned the 2 feet of snow that has piled up outside just this weekend, with oh so many more pictures to go along with it! Nobody can ever say a winter in New England is "boring".