Wow – we had some more snow Sunday night. I had meant to post these earlier – but it’s fun to look back at those pics now…

You definitely know it’s a special rare Alabama snowstorm when the snow is still around the next day! Check out these pictures and video from the fun yesterday and today.

We woke up to temps in the mid 30s and dry as can be instead of a nice layer of school canceling snow. But a few hours later, during the middle of teaching my class, I looked out the window and it was snowing very heavily. I let the students out a few minutes early, kitted up, and headed home for a fun bike ride through the snow. Then shortly after I got home, Kristine, Josiah, and I headed out through the woods to pick up Analise and walk her home. Josiah’s friend Jonathan was outside playing in the snow so he stayed with them while Kristine and I went to pick up Analise. Here’s all the pics…

It’s looking like it might actually snow tomorrow! Winter storm warning with 2-4″ predicted. The heaviest snow is going to be just north of Mobile, AL on the gulf coast with up to 8″ of snow!

Today it actually snowed! Analise had school anyway but with a 2 hour delay. That set up a fun adventure for us as we had already decided to bike to school this morning. The air temp was 15F when we left and 17F by the time Josiah and I made it home after dropping off Analise, but we were having so much fun we barely noticed the cold.

Analise doing a warm-up lap in our driveway

Josiah doing a warm-up lap in our driveway

Snowy street this AM

Biking together on the way to drop off Analise off at school

Josiah in heavy snow

Josiah almost all the way back home – a little cold by this point

We had an awesome winter wonderland trip visiting friends and family. The map above shows the places we visited on our return trip as well as the snow cover on the ground.

We left Shell Lake, WI on Tuesday driving across the state to Green Bay, WI to visit Kristine’s roommate from college and her family. We had a great time at Chuck-E-Cheese with Dena and Dan and their two kids (Derrick and Delia). Rick and Robin also joined in the fun at Chuck-E-Cheese as we tried to win tickets and played video games. Snow was in the forecast for Wednesday and sure enough, it started to snow pretty good as we left to head down to La Porte, IN to visit Kristine’s Grandma for New Year’s Eve.

It snowed pretty much the entire way, and it was a little bit dangerous because our wipers are not working so well from all the snow and grit. We made it and as you can tell from the map, they were already under a blanket of Lake Effect snow with another big storm coming in Thursday and Friday. We had a great time visiting family and bringing in the new year quietly before our return trip home to Alabama the next day. The snow started before we left, and we got to enjoy one last blast of snow before heading back down to Alabama … where it is supposed to snow this Thursday!!! Check out all the pictures and video below:

Lake effect snow in Indiana!

Scout Island, Shell Lake, WI

An ice fishing hut, Shell Lake, WI

Not quite thick enough to drive cars on, Shell Lake, WI

With an air temp of -10F, your breath freezes instantly onto your beard

Friends from college at UW Green Bay – Kristine, Robin, and Dena

Josiah, Derrick, and Analise hanging out on the jeep

Analise and Derrick danced in front of the camera for a while at Chuck-E-Cheese

I helped Josiah drive this snow mobile game

I worked the accelerator while Analise steered. She ended up turned around and going the wrong way!

Partially frozen Green Bay – I went for a 60 mile ride in VERY cold temps – probably felt the coldest at the end of this ride from all my rides

Lake effect snow falling for my last bike ride of the trip from La Porte, IN to New Buffalo, MI.

I parked my bike here and hiked the rest of the way up the boardwalk across the top of a small sand dune on Lake Michigan in New Buffalo, MI

The view of the rest of the boardwalk

A large floating piece of ice full of sea gulls

This ride was so cold that my water bottle froze and then all the gator-ice accumulated at the top as I tried to shake it down repeatedly into my mouth. I was so thirsty!

So cold leaving La Porte, the windows were freezing on the inside!

Today we had another fun adventure – ice skating! We had errands to run in Rice Lake (about 20 miles away), so we worked it out for me to bike down there on some nice backroads for a good 32 mile ride. It was COLD. The air temps were in the lower teens, but the wind was just unbelievable. I only had Kristine’s iphone with me to take these pictures, otherwise I would have taken video of the snow blowing across the road at 20mph. The outdoor ice skating pond was in not so good shape after the rain on Christmas day. It has been super cold since then, but the ice wasn’t very even.

Ice Skating Princesses

	My favorite picture of Analise and Kristine, the ice princesses
	Analise the ballerina ice skater
	We didn’t exactly follow instructions, but they were getting ready to take down the signs anyway (we saw a bunch of people ice skating on it after lunch)
	Three clips together here … Analise and Kristine almost wipe out at the end.
	Refueling at a midwestern favorite – Culver’s
	Josiah and me
	In Wisconsin – cheese is an art!

Mountain Biking Adventure

	Here’s the annotated topocreator route.
	Lots of long straight flat icy snowy roads – the challenge is finding a smooth line and riding as fast as you can without falling
	Some curvy roads too
	Some very icy roads – this is the stuff you want to avoid
	A huge snow plow for Walker (part 1 of 3)
	A huge snow plow for Walker (part 2 of 3)
	A huge snow plow for Walker (part 3 of 3)
	The view from the high point of the ride
	Blowing snow – the windchill was incredible. There was one part of the ride where the wind was blowing hard from the side and being funneled right into my eye by my sunglasses. I had to turn to look into the wind because my eyeball felt like it was starting to freeze!
	Snow drifts
	Rice Lake – the cool thing about this picture is the island with a picnic table only in the winter (or by boat in the summer)
	Ski-do anyone?
	My mountain bike at the ice rink
	An icy version of me at the ice rink.

Wind skiing

This was awesome to watch. Unfortunately my batteries died right before this guy took off … literally. He got going very fast and then jumped at least 8 feet in the air with the windsail taking him up and setting him back down. I got a new set of batteries in just in time for him to make it back. How cool!!!

We had a fun skiing and biking adventure today. A friend of the Cardwell’s organized a small skiing outing with a couple different families. I decided to do a longer mountain bike ride and meet them out at the trailhead to take some pictures. Went great except that Josiah was still feeling sick with a probable ear infection and stayed home with Grandma Sandy. Before dinner, Kristine and Grandma Sandy and the kids went over to some of our most faithful blog readers Judy and Alison Ricci. Here are the pictures and videos that tell the story.

Friends

Hanging out with Alison and Judy Ricci

Skiing

	Analise, the ski princess getting ready to head out for a long ski
	Heading back down the trail after a long ski
	Trying to catch snow flakes while Mommy looks very cold and Dale and Molly ski ahead
	Being towed along at the very end – quite a workout for Kristine!

Biking

	I rode from Shell Lake to Spooner onto a fun road called Roundhouse Rd. I saw the dinner train where we had quite a fun adventure two years ago.
	Roundhouse Rd – typical snow covered rd from the ride
	The end of the line for this train – snow covered tracks
	Christmas decorations out in the country beyond Spooner
	Snow mobilers – I saw lots of them on this fine Sunday afternoon
	Snow mobilers alongside the road
	Horses in the snowy countryside
	Beautiful shell lake – over 3 miles across. I am hoping to bike across it tomorrow or Tuesday
	I’ve ridden in cold weather before, but this is the first time I’ve had ice freeze to my knees!
	Self-portrait about 3/4 of the way through the ride. Temps in the teens with slushy, salty, dirty snow kicked up on my face

Ton of snow here!!!

Gives new meaning to “scraping the windshield”

Post-scraping, just enough to move the car out of the driveway

Which snow scraping implement is from Alabama? Which two implements are from Wisconsin? I’ll give you a hint – which one looks totally inadequate to scrape a foot of snow off the windshield and hood of a car?

Snow plowed in – blocked driveway

Exploring the snowy street

Snowy nativity

Salem Lutheran Church – where Kristine and I got married 6 1/2 years ago – the view from the Cardwell front porch

Snowshoeing tracks (or maybe it was Big Foot)

Skiing with Dale and Molly

Beautiful maple tree amongst cedar and other trees

Beautiful snowy creek, spring-fed and stays unfrozen even in the coldest temps

Speaking of frozen, when we left to drive to dinner – the rear two doors of the car were frozen shut! The kids had to climb through the front doors in order to get into the car. Then, once we got to Denelie’s, the kids had to reverse the process and climb out the front seat. Here’s a video!

At Denelie’s for a great pizza dinner

Also, it had started to snow pretty heavily right before we left for dinner. I took this video of some kids getting ready to go down the big sledding hill.

It’s hard to see all the snow falling on youtube because of the video compression.

Dec 24-2AM	Dec 24-8AM (30 min. after being swept)
Dec 24-9AM (90 min. after being swept)	Dec 25-2AM (peak snow accumulation)
Dec 25-9AM (starting to rain)	Dec 25-8PM (after raining all day)
Dec 25-11PM (starting to snow again)	Dec 26-8AM (1″ or 2″ new accumulation)

The snowstorm is all but wrapped up now, and in comes the cold weather behind it. The sun has just come out for the first time since we have been here, and the snow is beautiful! The collage above shows all stages of the storm. It looks like we brought a little bit TOO much warm air up with us from the Gulf of Mexico as the system turned unexpectedly to rain most of the day on Christmas (Day 3 of the storm). But the cold weather took over again by 8PM when it started to snow pretty heavily again. By this morning (Day 4) we had another inch or two of fresh snow. I went snowshoeing to help map the ski trails next to the house with my Garmin. I’ll post those pictures and pictures of our car later tonight.