Our First Winter in Nebraska

Supposedly this winter has been very unusual for Omaha. Long-time residents have told us that they haven't seen storms this bad in the last 15-20 years. We've had several days where the high temperature was around -5 degrees with lows in the -20s. Winds have been up to 40 mph creating wind chills in the -30s and -40s. We've gotten about 15" of snow with snow drifts up to 6 and 8 feet tall. So many people here have told us that they get by without a snow blower just fine--that usually they only get 3-4" of snow a year. So we decided to buy two shovels, try out our first winter, and if we decided we wanted a snow blower, we'd wait until the spring sales. Unfortunately, this was NOT the year to be without a snow blower! Justin and I have gotten LOTS of exercise shoveling 3-4 foot snow drifts across our driveway!

This is how we had to bundle up Justin to go shovel in 20 mph winds one day. At times he had to just stop shoveling and wait for the strongest gusts to subside. He's my hero!

I can deal with the cold and some snow, but we have unfortunately moved into a subdivision that does not get its roads plowed well. This is what our roads looked like even 5 days after the storms. Plows just won't clear or widen our street.

After daily phone calls to the county and the subdivision developer, we still haven't gotten our street plowed. It is so narrow that only one car can fit on the road. So when construction vehicles park on the street, the street is then blocked. Here's Annie's school bus trying to get down our street--the second time he's gotten stuck in the last 3 days of school!

I'm amazed that even after the storms, we've only had a couple days of blue skies and sun in the last month. Hopefully this gloomy winter won't last long. At least every winter from now on will seem mild to us!