The Great White Christmas!

1:18 PM

Christmas Day (specific pictures on that to follow) was wonderful! After a balmy Christmas Eve, we awoke and it was freezing outside with low, heavy grey clouds. It made the weather prediction of lots of snow more plausible than it had seemed the day before. By noon, it was raining and sleeting and by early afternoon, it was ice. Within minutes, trees were coated with a sheet of ice and beginning to bow with their new weight. After sharing Christmas with my entire family, we made it home right before the weather turned really nasty, so we were snug in our house as the ice began to take its toll on the surrounding trees. Then we did our own family Christmas, which is always the best part, isn't it? Seeing the looks of excitement on your children's faces as they rip into their gifts?

Before I knew it, the sky was dark and snow was falling.

As we went to bed, we praised God for a lovely day, made even MORE lovely by the winter weather. And we praised Him that, despite the snapping trees, we had power!

December 26, 2012, we opened our doors to find the following winter majesty...

While we were sleeping, our home and neighborhood was blanketed with about 9 inches of snow!

Another very interesting facet to this winter storm was that while it was snowing and below freezing, it was incredibly windy and there was lightning! It was the most bizarre experience. There was no typical thunder sound, but immediately following each lightning flash, it sounded liked a muffled sonic boom. I kept expecting our power to blink during those booms, but it never did, so it was obviously associated with the lightning. I later did some research on how there could possibly be lightning during a snowstorm and learned that there is such a thing called a Thundersnow. It's rare, but in the right conditions, there is snow with lightning. Apparently, that's what happened here!

In the words of Dorien, "Where Car go?"

The trees were bent low with the combined weight of ice and snow, and we did take some losses as far as big branches falling. But fortunately, no branches on cars or power lines.

We took a walk in our neighborhood to savor the world's greatest weather! Singer looked magnificent romping through the snow. Goldens were made for winter weather!

That's just one of the reasons I love Goldens. This was her first snow, but you wouldn't have known it. She acted like it was something she saw everyday!

Some damage to our crepe myrtle behind the house.

This was also Dorien's first snow! He bravely plodded through ice and snow and didn't fall once. He had a super warm jacket, thanks to my friend, Julia. And since it's a few sizes too big, we didn't even bother with gloves as his hands were well up in those sleeves!

Heading back to the house, taking our sweet time!

August was up to his knees in our front yard!

Amazingly, we had some snow suits for the kids, so they were dry and snug and ready for play!

The relatively untouched beauty of our upper backyard.

Bow to the snow, you crepe myrtle!

(Although we did lose some branches, after a few days of melting, the whole tree amazingly just sprang back upright. Which is good, since the Audi was stuck back there.)

Limbs down, but all worth it.

This was Rene's second Christmas with our family and his first big snow. His mind was blown! In Rwanda, the average temperature is 68. It never gets really cold or really hot, and it certainly doesn't snow. He was amazed by it, but also eager to return to the warmth of the house.

I know there were so many, including most of our street, who lost power for days, and my hearts go out to you! I hope you were still able to enjoy the beauty of our rare White Christmas!

And praise be to God who created such beauty and allowed this occurrence on the birthday of His Son!