Oh Yes, it snowed.

The snow hit us on Sunday night. We woke up on Monday morning to a glorious white-out.

So beautiful!

Gareth's work was closed, Quinn's daycare was closed. (I work from home, so work is never closed for me, but under the circumstances it was a minimal work day). So we stayed inside all day, heater cranked, enjoying our bonus day of holiday. We pigged out, drank tea, and played with Quinn. Snow days are fun!

Everything is more beautiful when coated in fluffy white snow. The street, the bushes, the mailbox, the washing line. It all looks magical and wonderful.

Frozen lemonade anyone?

We were playing outside when the sun started to try to come out. High in the sky and very faint, we could see a rainbow. Only it wasn't raining, it was snowing. It was a SNOWBOW! I snapped a photo of it.

There is a snowbow in this photo. Honest.

Later when we were looking at the photos, Gareth said, "Nice one. What exactly were you photographing here?" So yeah, you kind of have to squint to see the snowbow. But it's there. I'm pretty sure.

On Monday night, more snow. Lots more snow. When we woke up on Tuesday, it was as if we hadn't disturbed yesterday's snow at all. It had all been replaced and made perfect again. Hoorays!

clean slate

Day Two of hibernation is not as fun as Day One, however. You can't really keep a 1-year old out in the snow indefinitely, as he is very small and can barely walk in his gumboots. Gareth was called into work around midday, so he broke away and left us on our own just as cabin fever was really starting to set in.

Since the City Council was asking that everyone all limit driving to "essential" travel, I couldn't really justify social visits. And our usual standby - going out for coffee - was not an option either, since everything was closed. So I phoned my friend who lives at the top of the hill behind us and boldly invited ourselves over. "Of course, c'mon up!" she said. Ten minutes later we were suitably dressed (think of Randy in A Christmas Story) and we headed out into the storm.

Carrying a baby uphill through a foot of snow was hard work, but totally worth it to get out of the house.

One thing we're seeing more and more lately is that Quinn really, really likes to be outside. He's an outdoorsman, our boy. Here he is complaining when we brought him back inside.

Look at this face!

So it's Friday now, and the snow is nearly all gone. Ah well, it was fun while it lasted.

Storm

The people who predict weather have been all atwitter, going on about this big storm that is supposedly about to descend on the South Island. The supermarkets were jammed with panicky shoppers yesterday. There were news reports of stores running out of bread and firewood. "It's going to be huge," they said.

But this morning the sun was shining brightly. We went to the farmers' market and then to the park where we met a friend. We were squinting in the sunshine, enjoying the beautiful morning, idly pushing our kids on the swings. It seemed that once again, the weathermen had got it wrong.

But then, not long after we got home, it started to look a bit gray and dark outside.

And then it got more gray. And more dark.

And look out the window now: it's coming!

This is a rapidly changing situation. In the time it took me to see these clouds, decide to do a blog post, find the camera, snap a photo, upload the photo to the computer, and then log into Blogger (in other words, about a minute and a half), the sky had opened up! Suddenly, there was hail pounding our rooftop and the grass was turning white.

We're hunkering down. This could be a big one.