Stevens: Our family tale: The Not Blizzard of 2015

About a week a go the whole city of New York was preparing for a "historic blizzard". We were going to get 24- 36 inches of snow with hurricane like winds. The stores were packed with people stocking up on the essential, bread, milk, eggs, and water(I guess people only shop for one day at a time). The public transit system was going to close by 11pm, and all non emergency traffic on the road was banned. At 3 pm snow began to fall, by 5pm it had stopped. We were again warned on the news that the 2 inches we got then clear skies was just the calm before the storm and to be ready because "it will get bad". Fast forward to our typical 10:30 pm bed time, we looked out the window and nothing was falling from the sky. We awoke to excited kids at 6 am. I glanced out the window to see SNOW! Not the record amount that they were predicting, in fact less than half of that. We in Queens got the most at 10 inches!!! We watched out from our 4th floor window as people went to work, clearing side walks and plowing the roads. As the city authorities realized that the "blizzard" was not to be they scrambled to get everything back up and running. You see most people in the city don't own cars, so when the buses, trains and subways are not running people can't get to work, so the city that never sleeps was closed!

If you follow my blog or are my friend on FB then you know how much I hate winter, and snow. So the fact that we got way less than was predicted was great news but the fact that we got 10 inches was not so great. Nevertheless with my re-found optimism (read about it here) I decided to make the most it.

I needed to warm up our apartment. We haven't had a heater in our main living area since right after Christmas(long story). I got to work making bread of all kinds, honey wheat, cinnamon swirl, and chocolate chocolate chip banana bread. So since the city was shut down and kids where off from school, we passed out all these yummy treats to our neighbors. Something warm and yummy for the cold snowy day. I regularly bring treats to our neighbors in hopes to make up for the craziness they hear through the walls and floors.

After all the treats were passed out I did something I rarely do. I went out for the sole purpose to have fun in the snow with my family. YES, you read that right, I went out to play in the snow. The last time I went out to "play in the snow" I think I was about 18 years old and it was our first winter in Colorado. Colt and I spent a half hour getting everyone all bundled up in coats, gloves, hats, scarves, and boots. It takes that long when you have 5 kids. So we headed out to the park that is about a block or two away from our building. It was filled with kids enjoying their snow day.

Our kids had a wonderful time and loved the snow. Luckily for me we don't have all the right snow gear so our outside time was only about 45 minutes. We walked back home dropped all the wet clothes at the door and enjoyed some hot chocolate. We made some great memories and now maybe I can avoid going to "play in the snow" for another 12 years.