It’s the end of the world as we know it… and I feel fine.
Alert the presses! After hearing about the winter calamity plaguing the rest of the country for almost a full month, we here on the outer banks of North Carolina finally experienced it ourselves.
Dude, where's my car?
Unfortunately this freak weather decided to hit on a Saturday. Any other day of the week and it would have been a snow day for sure. In fact, we had a threat of ice about a month ago, and at 7:00pm the night before my work called and told me to delay coming to work the next day by two hours. I gladly turned off my alarm and slept in, but laughed the whole way to work as the temperature was barely in the upper 30′s and there wasn’t a bit of moisture on the ground.
Coastal North Carolina just doesn’t know what to do when the white stuff falls. Our snow removal service is Jim Bob and his 1978 Ford F-150 Truck with a front loader (and no side view mirrors). Of course, everyone with a 4×4 decides they are going to go out and prove their worth, assuming driving in snow is the same as driving in mud (a state pastime out here). I find no end to the irony that this morning the only two vehicles I saw off the road were a Jeep Grand Cherokee and a Dodge Ram 4×4 with the words “Off Road” written on the side. Meanwhile my little Subaru Outback trotted along nicely as we went out to buy my son some snow boots so we could play in the new winter wonderland that had become our backyard.
The view from the back porch
After some excessive bundling up, we ventured outside to enjoy my son’s second experience in snow in as many years (we had to travel to Indiana for his first). He seemed to enjoy himself much better this time around… that is until I realized that he was standing in the snow with only one boot on. I am not sure how long he had been bootless, but it took me some time to hunt around in the snow to find his other one. Needless to say, I didn’t win Parent of the year today. 
Despite his nearly frostbitten foot, he stuck it out for about a half hour as we tried to build a snowman. The snow was perfect for snowballs, but didn’t want to cooperate as snowman snow. Despite our drawbacks, we prevailed and made the first (as far as I could tell) snowman in the neighborhood. I dressed him up with oversized legos from my son’s toychest for eyes, a nose, and mouth, and used two vacuum cleaner attachments as arms. I threw my hat on there for style.
North Carolina's first snowman?
30 minutes was enough for us. We called it quits and headed inside for some warmer and dryer clothes. Our feet are thawing out as we speak…
The fam
If you want some serious irony, look closely at my son’s feet. You’ll notice that one of his boots actually fell off right before I took the picture! Guess I need to remember to double up his socks next time?
