We will not soon forget this day

It's in the record books. 
No school tomorrow.
And the city of Chicago had to stop for a day. 

When I looked outside from the inside the drifts of snow didn't seem so big, but I was deceived.  Our first shovel job took about 2 1/2 hours.  Not bad and we enjoyed the time and the work. After a break for lunch the the kids came out.  By then the sun was out and snow had stopped.  

We had cleaned out the alley in front of our garage but to get through the alley was going to be a challenge.    The city won't plow alleys and Devin, against my better advice wanted to test the theory.  He even asked me not to tell anyone about this one. I didn't agree to keep it quiet.  

We have 2 neighbors with pick up trucks who made it out of the alley - but the first guy had to get out of his truck every couple feet to clear the snow from in front of the truck.  Without a plow no one was moving through 20 inches without a fight.  Again - I told the man not to and swore I wasn't gonna help him shovel the truck out. He thought that will 4WD the truck would get through - but the acura is too low and once you get your car marooned on snow 4WD doesn't do anything for you.   Devin and our neighbor had to dig the snow out from under the truck in order to move it. I parked the truck and took his driving privileges away!

Buried under this is the alley

As we were talking with our neighbors about clearing a path down the alley so we could drive out tomorrow the mystery man in the backhoe showed up and saved us all a lot of time.  He did a beautiful job of clearing a path in minutes which will the work of all still would have taken us hours. No one knew him, and he never stopped to talk, but we were so thankful for the good deed he did.

And a few more of the kids enjoying the snow they will remember and WISH for in the years to come