Storm stayed

The first major storm of 2011 had us huddling around the fireplace with no electricity this morning. The children enjoyed the adventure of it all, lighting candles, playing board games and doing puzzles. And the bonus was that Grammy Mo is here too, little did she know when she planned a visit for this weekend. The power came back on around 11am but the storm has raged on, increasing in intensity and decreasing visibility throughout the day. At times we couldn't see the flag pole or the bright yellow & red slide just 20 feet from the house. After much debate this morning the storm afforded me a snow day off from work...which came to be needed given the high winds, poor visibility, poor road conditions (according to AMA) and my anxiety regarding bad weather driving. The ironic part of it was this morning the city had gotten NO bad weather, just some wind. Lucky for me my clinician lives half way between us and the city and the road conditions were pretty bad on her way in this morning, she actually called to see if I thought I could make it in. My colleagues in the city couldn't understand what the problem was....until the weather picked up there later in the day. We came to understand soon after moving out here that we are not in the same weather band as Calgary is, which means that the majority of the time we get worse weather out here...the open roads provide no protection from the wind and whiteout conditions happen pretty easily. Here is hoping that things get settle down over night as I have to get in to work tomorrow.