Cabin fever has set in.  We have watched far more of the weather news that I would recommend, cooked and baked (and consequently overindulged), played multiple games of scrabble, blogged, edited pictures, watched several basketball games and a movie in the past 24 hours. The travel ban is lifting in 4 minutes as I write this and I couldn’t be more excited about dining out this evening.

Since I was confined to the house, I thought I might as well track the progress of the storm.  Here is my coverage of the storm (on a 24-48 hour delay):

Backyard around noon Friday.

Front yard around noon Friday.

Backyard about 2 hours later.

Front yard about 2 hours later.

The deck around 2PM Friday.  Keep this image of the overturned table handy.

A backyard-deck combo around 2PM Friday.  I was getting a little carried away.  There was nothing else to do.

Front yard around 4PM Friday, just as the travel ban took effect.  I don’t remember ever being under a travel ban before.  It makes you really want to travel.

Backyard around 4PM Friday.  The snow was beginning to bury things.

The kitchen island around 4PM Friday. Time for some wine and cheese.

I also made some German chocolate bourbon pecan pie bars.  I’ll post about those later.

Back to the snow coverage (day 2):

Approximately 9AM Saturday morning.  We had officially been snowed in.  Travel ban still in effect as snow removal teams tried to clear roadways.

Front yard Saturday morning.  There is an Adirondack chair under all of that snow somewhere.  Anyone feel like a cup of coffee on the front patio?

Winter wonderland.

The deck was almost completely filled in.

The front walk/tunnel midday on Saturday as the snow tapered off.

No amount of snow will keep my family from grilling.  The first thing my dad did outside was shovel a path on the deck in case we needed some steaks for dinner.  Those are the table legs sticking out of the snow.

As I mentioned, the travel ban was lifted at 4PM on Saturday, so we ended up going out to dinner. The highways had been salted and were almost completely clear of snow.  Some of the back roads and smaller roads in the city were still quite snowy, but that didn’t stop us.  Here we are exiting the restaurant.  The snow was up to the top of the parking meters.  Karma for the cranky meter maids if you ask me.

Y’all be careful,

Sugarlump