The big storm

The end of October brought us a little weather surprise. A big surprise actually. Hartford received over 12 inches of snow on October 29th. Needless to say we felt a little unprepared for such a massive storm so early in the season. The wet heavy snow came before trees had fully dropped their leaves causing a LOT of downed trees and power lines. Basically the entire state of Connecticut (and most other areas of the Northeast) were shutdown and in a state of emergency on Sunday morning. We are very thankful that we only had a few branches down with no severe damage. It will take some work (including the purchase of a chainsaw) to get everything cleaned up but we made it through the storm relatively unscathed. 

You can't really see it in the photo below but that is actually the top of a HUGE tree that fell on the backside of the neighbor's house (right side of the photo). It did not look like there was any damage to the house but their van was blocked in the driveway and their other vehicle was completely underneath the tree. That tree made a horrible, loud cracking noise as it was coming down. It was eerie listening to branches creek and snap in the darkness of the snowy night. Sadly similar images could be found all over the neighborhood. With all the damage all over town the power was of course out for more than a week and sadly Halloween was canceled in West Hartford.

We lost power around 10pm on Saturday night and decided to pull the mattresses from the guest room into the living room in front of the fireplace for a family camp out. Lily thought this was great fun and decided not to sleep much at all.  Yeah fun for Mom and Dad. After one cold night without power Tim and I decided to take our little family to warmer climates. Thankfully we had a car with a full tank of gas (few gas stations had power and those that power had lines with at least an hour long wait) and relatives within a few hours drive willing to let us show up for a surprise visit. We went to Virginia and spent the week with Tim's brother and family (hooray for Tim being able to work from "home" for the week). Instead of sitting at home in the dark and freezing cold for the week we had a lovely visit with John, Valerie, and Miss Nellie. The boys worked during the day and the girls played and had a few small shopping excursions. We even squeezed in a family day at the National Zoo during our visit. Lily loved it. She even got to hear the Lion roar while we were paying him a visit. Lily attempted a hello roar in return of course.

Lily loved the fish. I think it was her favorite thing she saw all day.

Tim was attempting to setup this picture to make it look like Lily was eating the elephant. It did not work but you've got to love the Sallay humor.

It was a great family day at the zoo.

Thanks again John, Valerie, and Nellie for letting us visit and providing a warm place to sleep!