Why I Oughta...

I was gifted this leaf blower upgrade for Christmas this year and with the thin, light powder that came down this week, it was a perfect time to try blowing the snow away.  No back strain.  No work involved, actually.  Worked really well.  Won't do the trick when the heavy stuff comes down, but for now?  Loved it. 

Chicago's 'front yard' is a winter wonderland this morning as a bit of snow dropped on the parks.  The last time I posted a snow picture of my view from Edelman was last year in February . We've been fortunate with very little snow this winter and normally I'm all for bad, snowy winters.  But this year, since we've been building the house during the bulk of the winter, we've been hoping and (so far.... *knock on wood*) have had a super mild winter. Now that our house is all button'd up with a roof and windows , snow like this doesn't affect us one bit.  And that's kinda nice.

Last night, Indiana Street in Elmhurst looked like a winter wonderland.  With the big snowfall, we went out to clean the sidewalks and driveway and while I was out there, I snapped this photo of our Front Yard Tree.  This is the seventh Elmhurst Front Yard tree that I've posted on the blog and the second one in front of Vic and Equation Boy/Man's house down the street from our old place. Although you may not be able to tell, this year's tree is a really nice-sized tree in terms of height.  I put one strand of C9 LEDs on it, but Nat didn't think it was bright enough, so she went out and picked up two more strings of C9 LEDs and now there's 150 lights on that thing. Here's the post showing our 2015 tree out front of Equation Boy/Man's house. Here's the post from our 2014 tree out front of our old house (sad face). Here's my post from our 2013 tree . There's no snow in the photo of our 2012 tree . Here's my post from our 2011 tree .

One of the prettiest sights these eyes have ever seen:  snow falling on the beautifully decorated Hollywood Boulevard while some appropriate-era Christmas song is playing over the loudspeakers. We were told about this 'snow' by my friend Adam and he recommended this time of year for a visit.  We've taken him up on his recommendation a few times now and it never gets old.

 When the shoveling is done (or mostly done...), the girls wanted to play.  Don't mind if we do.

During the most recent polar vortex, the Babe and I went out in the front yard for some snow angels and getting pulled around the block in a sled.  The weather, did however, take the other two kids out of play for the night.  That's just fine with me as I got to spend some 1:1 time with the top dog.

If you look hard enough, you'll see Ms. Maisy enjoying the winter day. Been almost a year since we had a day like today.

Thanks to the Babe's Uncle Bill and Granddad, we have (for now at least) a pretty cute snowman friend out in our front yard.  They even made him 2-faced, so we could see him from the comfort of our front room. With the temps rising and a little bit of rain coming down, the conditions couldn't be more perfect for snowman-making, or as we called it as kids:  "packing snow".

Last night the snow came in and piled up to the tune of almost 8 inches.  Half way through the storm, I went to let Maisy out the back door when we came across this snow-art on our back deck.  The snow was so fine and light that it was spilling through the cracks in the deck boards.

This morning was the first morning in a year and a half that I've truly appreciated having a garage!