Freak Snow Storm

I can't believe we had a Nor'easter in October!  For those of you reading this who are not from the area a Nor'easter is basically a really bad storm.  You can read more on it HERE.  The problem with having a nor'easter in October is that all of the leaves are still on the trees.  The heavy snow sticks to all the leaves which become to heavy for the tree which then breaks limbs or completely falls over.  We watched the weather forecasts and we seem to be right on the line between the 4-8 inch band and the 8-12 inch band.  In the end I would say we got about 5-6 inches.  Throughout the evening Jason and I would go out and shakes the snow from the smaller trees/shrubs in our front yard in hopes of saving them.  By 11:30PM we went out for one last shake of the tree and to shovel the driveway.  The driveway was a giant pile of slush so we wanted to get it cleared before the temperatures dropped and we had 5 inches of ice.  We were fortunate in that we hadn't lost power all night when many people around the state had lost power.  We went to bed hoping for the best.  We woke up in the morning and still had power which was a big relief.  We had lost it at some point in the night since our clocks were flashing but that was easy to deal with.  We looked outside and despite being October and having snow on the ground it was beautiful.  The sun was shining and glistening off the snow.  We had breakfast and then headed out to tend to the yard and survey any damage.  We shoveled the driveway and shook the trees clear of snow.  Two trees had large branches snap but not enough to ruin the look of the tree.  One semi-big tree snapped its branches in two near the bottom so that had to be cut down but we didn't do it that day.  After clearing the driveway and shaking the trees we decided it would be better to enjoy the snow than to try to do any real clean up.  We got the sleds out and made two tracks down the hill in our backyard and the kids had a blast.  Jason and the girls had a snowball flight.     
Sofia was ready and had built a little snow wall to hide behind. While the snowstorm caused quite a bit of damage around town and around the State, we came through it relatively unharmed and were able to enjoy the fun of having our first snowstorm of the season.  The was enough damage around town though that the girls did not have school on Monday.  We will have to hope this is not a trend otherwise the girls will be in school until July.