breaking the silence

Yes, we're still here!  This poor little blog has taken a back seat for the past few weeks, but we are all fine and life is good, despite a freak snow storm that has turned our neighborhood into a battered war zone and left us all without power for four days (and counting...we're not supposed to get it back until the end of the week).

Our poor trees took quite a beating.  We lost quite a few branches, including a few BIG ones.

And our poor magnolia tree - most likely a total loss.

We toughed out the power outage for a day or two, but as soon as we heard my parents had gotten their electricity back a few miles away, we packed up and headed to that haven of warmth, light, hot showers and flushing toilets.

Kiddo had his first snow day of the year yesterday (Halloween) due to power outages and closed roads, and school is optional today, as his building still doesn't have power (jury's still out on whether or not he'll go this morning - he's one tired boy). 

Hard to remember that just a couple of days ago, our world looked like this!

Damage and inconvenience aside, it really was quite pretty.  It's not very often that you get to see fall colors and snow at the same time.

We've got a warm, welcoming place to stay, and Kiddo is having a grand time with his grandparents.  Our house is undamaged, it's warm enough that we don't have to worry about frozen pipes, our basement isn't flooding, and my mom had room in her freezer to take on most of our perishables.  We'll be paying a hefty sum to the tree surgeons, but life is good, and we'll look back on this week as a grand, crazy adventure.

P.S.  I realized (after posting) that I totally copied the title for this post from Faith.  Whoops!  Sorry, Faith!