Waking Up to a Winter Wonderland

This is what we saw when we looked out of the window this morning. Yup, looks like the winter storm is over. It has stopped snowing and the visibility has improved by so much (we couldn't even see past the parking lots yesterday!). The winter storm warning is still in effect as of now, but it looks like the worst is over. I'm pretty impressed that our apartment maintenance guys have already cleared the parking lot and walkways. In fact, they have been working non stop throughout the storm the whole of yesterday and last night. I'm currently watching the morning news and it looks like we got away with only a few inches of snow. However, the same cannot be said about other parts of NJ and Long Island. There were reports of snow accumulation as high as an adult's waist! Oh well, at least the storm has passed...now the clean up will begin :P

In like a Lion, out like a Lamb...

March is here at last! Remember the old saying " If March comes in like a Lion, it will go out like a Lamb"? Well, March came in like a roaring like a lion this year! The winds where gusting at high speeds and snow was just falling down like a white curtain. Not only that, it was also bitter cold.

The snow started falling around 9pm last night and it continued until late afternoon today. I went out for a short walk early this morning around 6:30am and this is what greeted me at the door. I stepped into at least 6 to 8 inches of snow. There was just thick powdery snow everywhere!

All of the schools in the area had the day off because of the snow storm so there were not many people walking around at this hour. This is at the little garden near the car park of our apartment building.

I walked over to the front of the apartment building to check out the scene :P Thick white snow everywhere.

Thank God the roads were all cleared though. I could hear salt trucks and snow plows working overtime through the night.

The lone car in the middle of the road is Kevin heading to work. Look at the amount of snow on top of the trash bags, I would hate to be the trash removal guys, it will be a pain to load all the trash that is covered with thick snow into the truck.

I would also hate to be the owner of this car. I bet he spent quite a while scrapping off the ice and snow from his car!

Alritey, it's getting a little bit too cold for me. My jeans were soaked with snow and my toes were semi frozen from walking around in the cold cold snow (I made the mistake of wearing sneakers instead of boots). The wind was so strong last night that it even managed to blow all the snow under the awning at the entrance of our apartment.

The snow and wind has died down but it's still frigid cold. Even as I am typing this, I'm glad to be indoors, feeling all toasty and warm. Three more weeks to Spring, let's hope March goes out like a Lamb. I'm more than ready for winter to be over! :D

Happy Groundhog Day!!

Second of February is not just our wedding anniversary but it's also Groundhog Day! Well, our anniversary, Groundhog Day and Ron's (our brother in law) birthday :P So, what's Groundhog Day actually?

Every year, revelers would make their way to Gobbler's Knob in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania to wait for the world famous groundhog, Punxsutawney Phil's forecast. Punxsutawney is a small town about 65 miles northeast from Pittsburgh. I still remember back when we were studying in Indiana University of PA, kids party all night and jump on the party bus to head to Punxy at 4am morning to celebrate Groundhog Day! We never made it, you must either be a die hard party animal or just plain mad to stand in the freezing cold, in the middle of the night, just waiting for Phil to make an appearance :P

This year is the 123rd annual Groundhog Day. So, what's the forecast? As a member of the Inner Circle took Phil from his tree stump home, an announcer said " As I look around me, a bright sky I see and a shadow beside me, six more weeks of winter it will be". There you go! As usual, Phil sees a shadow and another 6 more weeks of winter to go!! This is a German tradition during the Candlemas holiday, that if a hibernating animal sees a shadow on Feb 2nd, winter would last another six weeks. Out of the 123 years, the groundhog has seen a shadow 97 times. Only 15 out of the 123 times has Phil not seen a shadow and the remaining 9 years were unaccounted for. So this years forecast doesn't come as a surprise :P Come to think of it, with all the bright spotlights around, of course Phil would cast and see a shadow! Hahaha.

Anywaysss, another 6 more weeks of winter to go. Enjoy to freezing cold and snow :D Oh, and Happy Groundhog Day!!!

Snow, snow & more snow

It started snowing early this morning and boy, did it snow! The snowflakes were really huge, some are almost as big as a Ritz cracker. It was also really windy, thus making the snowflakes fly in every direction!! It looks pretty weird, check out the video I took this morning from my window. It was snowing so hard, the whole skyline of Manhattan totally disappeared.

Last Minute Christmas Shopping

With the really bad snowstorm last night, icy road conditions and crazy last minute Christmas shoppers, we were not exactly trilled to go out Christmas shopping earlier today. However, it's the last weekend to get all our Christmas shopping done so it's off to the malls we go!

We were all bundled up (it was around 22F this morning) and with Christmas songs blasting on the car radio, we headed to Circuit City. There was a bit of a traffic jam on the turnpike but we were surprised that there were not many people out shopping today. I don't know if it's the weather or the state our economy is in right now, but there wasn't any mad Christmas shopping rush. Something tells me it's the economy :(

After going to six different stores (Circuit City, Walmart, Kmart, Kohls, Target and Bed Bath & Beyond), I am proud to announce that we are done with all the shopping. Woohoo! No, we didn't go to all six stores today. We spread it out over a space of two weekends. Here is part of the loot!

With all the wrapping supplies laid out, we started to wrap and wrap and wrap. Whewww...I never knew wrapping can be so tiring. Tiring but fun! :DAt last, all the presents were wrapped and placed under the Christmas tree. Looks like we have stuffed too many presents under the poor tree until it flowed onto the train tracks. I guess the train will not be able to go around the tree for the next few days. Hehehe.

I am just glad that we are done with all the presents. Now we can just sit back and wait for the second round of snowstorms that will be coming out our way in a few hours time.

First snow of the season!

The weather has been pretty erratic this season. We had temperatures up in the mid 60s two days ago (boy it sure was nice, felt like a summers night) and it dropped to below 32F within 24 hours! I guess that's what you get for living in the Northeast.

It started to rain early yesterday and changed to very light snow sometime in the evening. It was full on snow by late evening. This picture was taken around 10pm at night. It was snowing so hard that couldn't even see the houses outside our window. All we could see was tiny lights. It was really beautiful though.

The snow didn't really stick because the ground was still relatively hot. I took those two photos around 8:30am in the morning and you can see that the snow was already melting away. It was totally gone by noon. Stick or no stick, looks like we got our first snow for the season.

Looks like more snow is heading our way this weekend and the weatherman says that there is a high possibility for a white Christmas this year. Woohoo!! Let's keep our fingers crossed!!