Hurricane Sandy

Monday October 29th was the beginning of a storm that many will never forget.  It brought an average of 2 feet of snow and a ton of wind here to Garrett county...causing tons of down trees and power lines and leaving thousands of people without power...many for over a week!  Now we were told when we moved here that snow was something we needed to get used to (even though last winter we hardly had any).  But this was one of the worst storms(if not THE worst storm) many people in our church have ever seen.  It's not the amount of snow we got that made it so bad, but the type of snow.  Two feet of dry snow is nothing for Garrett County, but two feet of wet, heavy snow is another story.  That is what caused so many trees to fall.  The first day we were actually able to get out, it looked like a tornado had come through.  No houses were destroyed that I know of, but trees were snapped in half and power lines were laying on the ground everywhere!  We were expecting a bad storm so we spent the majority of the morning Monday morning washing clothes and dishes, cleaning bathrooms, stocking up on groceries, and running a few errands.  Then, we randomly decided to run to Cumberland, MD (about an hour closer to the coast) quickly to grab a few things we needed since our blizzard warning didn't begin until 6 that evening.  Well, we took our sweet time since we left after right after lunch, and went into Walmart there and strolled through the mall.  Well when we decided to leave it was time to feed Peyton, so as I was feeding him in the car, Jason and I were piddling on Facebook.  We noticed several people posting that it was already snowing in Garrett County!  So hurried to finish feeding the baby and we began to high-tail it back home!  We made it fine, but as soon as we got home we began to finish our storm preparations.  We stacked a bunch of wood inside for our wood stove, finished the laundry, and filled up our bathtub and a 20 gallon storage tub full of water.  (We were anticipating power outages and we're on well water, so without power we also have no running water).  Well the snow fell...and many lost power Monday evening....and didn't get it back until the following Sunday, Monday and Tuesday.  We were blessed and didn't loose power until Wednesday around noon and got it back that night around midnight.  But we were able to offer our shower, washer/dryer, and warm meals to any without....so that was fun!
Anyway...I also thought I'd share a few pictures of our storm...a few are pics others posted on Facebook, so I hope none of you mind that I stole them! :)
This is the side of our house...

 Our back fence...

 Our garage...

 My foot in the snow...

 This was one on Facebook...

 Now although the amount of snow was not a surprise to those who have lived here awhile, it was quite a surprise for those of us who have only lived here a year and moved from Tennessee...where 8 inches of snow is a good winter! :)  So Tuesday we bundled up and went out in the cold and wind for a little while to play...

 There's some down trees...

It was quite a storm.  As I'm writing this going on two weeks later there is still a lot of snow on the ground!  We are starting to see grass in some places, but I imagine the big piles of snow created by the snow plows will be around for a good while!  We sure appreciate the many of you back in Tennessee who were praying for us during the storm!  I think we weathered our first blizzard pretty well...and I'm thankful that many who had it much harder than we did are now back to normal as well!