Blizzard!

 Like many of you, we had crazy weather over Christmas!  They started talking about bad weather early in the week, and by Wednesday, they said we would be under a blizzard warning by 4 pm Thursday.
I'm so thankful to be working where I am.  I spent a lot of years having to get to work, regardless of the weather, so I don't take this for granted.  The office managers decided to close the office on Thursday and Friday and have us all work from home.

Here's my workspace from Thursday and Friday.  They have it set up so I have headphones and can take phone calls through the computer, and can also fax things that way.  Technology is amazing sometimes!
Snow started falling in the afternoon and it just kept coming.

This was the view of our backyard on Friday.  Bob had the day off so I didn't have to worry about him driving. The sheriff's department was asking people not to drive unless it was an emergency.  On Saturday, his store closed - which has never happened in the 24 years he has worked there.

Saturday, the snow kept falling.

Laura, Aaron, Andrew and Heather were all supposed to come over on Saturday - Christmas Eve, but that wasn't happening.  We decided to try for Christmas night instead.
Our church also cancelled the Christmas Eve services, as did most every church around us.

Before long, our church and all the others were closing on Christmas day too.

By Sunday afternoon, the snow was slowing down and the blizzard warning had lifted.

This is our porch.  The snow had blown around to the inside of the beams.

Here's a shot through the glass door to the porch.  You can see how much snow is up on the porch.  The snow in the yard was even with the porch and my pretty Christmas porch pot was covered with snow.
I have 2 small lighted trees by the front door that were also covered.

This star is hanging on the porch, and it also got covered in snow.

Here's Bob snowblowing on Sunday afternoon.  He had done this once on Friday in case he had to get out, but by Sunday, it was all filled in again.

Here's the backyard on Sunday.

Here's another photo of the porch - you can see how much snow was on the roof.

The trees were buried!

Here's our house on Monday - I've never seen snow on the roof like that.  Bob worked hard when he got home from work on Monday, pulling a lot of that snow down.

I didn't take this picture, but wanted to share what the lighthouse in Grand Haven which is near us, looks like.  Lots of wind and very cold temps turned it into an ice sculpture!

Here's a closer shot of it.

And one more!  This is the Muskegon Lighthouse, about 30 minutes from us. It's amazing what happens when wind and waves mix with freezing temps.

It was quite a storm!

The National Weather service put out these statistics on it:

Total snow: 24.5 inches
Peak wind: 45 mph
Number of hours of visibility at 1/4 mile or less: 12

Average Temperature: 15