Blizzard '10

I am certain that there are thousands of blog posts with the same title, but that is exactly what it was: a blizzard. Or blizzardS, I should say. For those of you outside of the Eastern Seaboard, you may need a bit of an update: we had three '10-year storms' in Virginia within one month of each other, making this the worst Virginian winter in (statistically speaking) 1,000 years (the math brought to you by Nate). Our back deck is still covered in two feet of snow, and that is after more or less 1 full week of sunshine and melting.

We were blessed to have a houseguest during the second of these three storms. Old roommate and dear friend of eight years Amber Henrie made it down on the last bus from NYC. It was already snowing heavily when she arrived, and didn't stop for several days. She deserves the credit for many of the following photos.

Nate spent hours...hours and hours...shoveling. He had to borrow a shovel since someone stole ours (can you believe it? The nerve). You can see his handiwork here. Can you believe this snowpile in our front yard?

Yumi did her best to keep as warm as possible, but it was hard to keep the snow off her incredibly long lashes (you'll have to enlarge the picture to see what I mean).

The Federal Government was closed for four full days--meaning Nate was stuck at home. He got a little stir crazy, as you will see through the following series of pictures and video clips. Enjoy!

Our master bedroom window.

Amber couldn't be outdone, so she went next:

If you are one of Mayumi's grandmothers, you should skip the next video:

And finally, to top it off, I take the plunge. You'll hear Mayumi in the background...enough to make your heart bleed. She really loves me.

This picture is worse than the Peter DeFazio picture (inside family joke...). You'll have to blow it up to get the full effect, but I won't be offended if you don't. Again, I have to credit Amber for this heinous but most excellent photograph.