Snow Day!

I never thought it would happen. In fact, last night Jake and I talked about how they never call off school in Bismarck because of snow. I told him that maybe the farm kids or the Lincoln kids would be excused, or get to be an hour late, but the town kids would still have school. I was wrong.

For the first time since 1997, Bismarck Public Schools called off school today because of the blizzard! I had no idea! I didn't watch the news this morning, and Brad is gone hunting so he didn't either. The kids and I got up at 7:00 and started getting ready for the day. At about 7:30, my next door neighbor called and asked if I needed a ride to work, what I was going to do with the kids, and if I needed her daughter to watch Lizzy. I had no idea what she was talking about. When she told me school was cancelled I didn't believe her! I thought she was pulling some kind of mean practical joke on me! She couldn't believe that I, the news lady on the block, didn't know! I hung up with her, checked our station website, and called my aunt, who also knew already. Boy did I feel stupid!

After I got over the shock, I went about making arrangements. Of course, this storm (we got over nine inches of snow and lots of wind!) happened on opening deer weekend, which means Brad is not home. He and his buddies left Bismarck for Mott at 3:30 yesterday afternoon. They finally made it to the farm at 9:00 last night! It took five and a half hours to go 90 miles! I should have known then it was a bad storm! At any rate, while he was trying to get to the farm, I was left with a giant snow drift in my driveway. So after the kids went to bed, I called Paul to come over and sit in the house in case Lizzy woke up while I went outside to shovel. Paul brought Curt and a shovel over. Together, we cleared my side of the driveway and the walkway to the front door in good time. I was concerned about the sidewalk because the milkman comes on Friday mornings and I did not want him to have to climb through the massive drifts to deliver my milk and bread. He had to anyway. The wind came up after I went to bed, and it snowed even more...and my path was completely covered with snow!

Times like these I am very grateful for good neighbors. My next door neighbor came over with his snowblower this morning and cleared the whole driveway. Then he gave me a ride to work in his four-wheel drive pickup. While I worked (and he went hunting) his 12 year old daughter watched my kids. I think her mom was home much of the day too, because she sent the big kids and a few other neighbor kids to my driveway to shovel the rest of the snow. It was all caught on camera too... we had a crew doing a story on kids enjoying this extra day off from school... they just happened to get video of the kids on Laredo Drive! Check back soon for the story, and the unedited video!

If there's snow where you are, happy shoveling. If there isn't, you're missing out! This blizzard reminded me of the good stuff in life. It's easy to complain about the snow, the shoveling, the headaches. But watching my kids play in the snow (they were outside by 7:30 this morning!) and enjoy their first-ever snow day helped me put it all in perspective. I'm just sad I had to work and I couldn't be home to make a snowman with them! Maybe the next blizzard will hit on a weekend and we can all enjoy being snowbound together!