More of the Same

What?  Another post concerning snow?!  Who knew?  Snow seems to be center stage in our lives right now so there's really not anything else to write about. We have now received a whopping 82.6 inches of snow, and very little of it has melted! The kids have missed more days of school than I can even count, and we've even resorted to making our front yard into ice cream!  (Thanks, Cara!)  In case you're interested, 1 gallon snow, 1 cup sugar, 2 cups milk, and 1 Tbs. vanilla make a delicious treat!

I'll start with the good.  It truly is a winter wonderland at our house, and the scene outside our front window is beautiful!

Cardon is at the bottom of our front steps. You can barely see the top of the bush that sits along the landing.

Em's playhouse

Em and Bud in front of one of our various snow piles!

What's left of our mail and paper boxes

Cardon dug a sweet tunnel to sled through.

Dennis had to dig a trail out to our propane tank so our propane company would deliver.  This is not a snow bank.  This is how much snow is sitting in our yard!

This is where the beautiful turns ugly.  On Sunday, January 30th, we started having water leak into our front bay window.  This is Dennis getting "the ox out of the mire" to help stop the leaks. We didn't have any more troubles until Saturday, when to our dismay, we had wet stains in numerous rooms in the house.  

ceiling stains :(

broken rain gutters :(

wet carpets :(

This is where the ugly returns to beautiful.  We had a whole crew of fabulous men from our ward come and help us clear the roof and break channels into the ice dams.  

This is Elder Ficklin doing a flip from the roof onto the snow on the deck!  Shhh!  Don't tell the mission president!

Here's the crew cleaning the driveway of the snow that came off the roof!

What can I say?  It's been a crazy, beautiful, frustrating and gratitude-filled winter so far!