Aliens in the Apple

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!

Franci 27 Dec 2010 Being tourists Hospitality NYC Parks Weather

It started snowing on Sunday morning and continued snowing through the night. This morning we woke up to almost 2 feet of snow and a totally transformed neighborhood.

This is what it looked like trying to get out of our metal gate:

Up to the front gate. Check it out: our trash cans have hats on!

Some person’s car in front of our house:

Jeremy’s car:

The steps up to the house next door.

Some steps up the block. They look like mini ski slopes!

On Sunday night we had a bunch of people hanging out at our place. Jeremy, a friend from Philadelphia who lived in Christchurch for a year, is staying for a few days. Lillian is still here, and we had Shannon and Erin from church. Shannon couldn’t go home because of the snow so she stayed the night too and came along to Central Park for some fun playing in the snow.

Shannon:

Lillian:

Me:

Ben enjoyed his first snow shovelling experience. I think if he lived somewhere where he had to do this regularly, it would get old fast!

Esther with some fans. Marica isn’t in any of the photos because she was sleeping on the couch most of the day — her and Esther have been really miserable with the flu and they seem to have passed that on to Ben and me now…

I had to get to the grocery store in the morning and had to try and make my way through this to be able to walk on the road that had been plowed earlier.

I stayed home with 2 sick kids and the rest of the crew traipsed off to Central Park. Here’s my handsome husband laxing out with a snow footstool.

Playing under a gazebo:

Jeremy:

Shannon and Lillian got their pant legs frozen stiff!

Hey, it’s Narnia!

The taxis are still going.

Can you believe that this is in the middle of a big city?

The lake had a slush layer on top. Not for ice skating! It is rather picturesque though, isn’t it?

I apologise for all the photos to those of you with dial-up. I had a really hard time deciding which ones not to put in!

Comments (4)

Lois Hoyt 27 Dec 2010 at 10:47pm

Wow! Is this much snow unusual even for NYC, or is it common to have this much at some point during the winter? I am glad you all could enjoy it! Wonderful pictures.

Brenda 28 Dec 2010 at 4:40am

Okay, that’s a lot of snow! I read somewhere that it was the most snow in 60 years? It reminds me a bit of the blizzard of ’96 in Boston, a week before I flew down to New Zealand to visit Gary for the first time. I made a home video at the time for Gary to see what it was like; years later I put it on youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZauEYET0Lyk

Have fun in the snow!

Aunt Bekky 29 Dec 2010 at 2:23am

Good stuff, Franci :-)

Thanks for the photos and the commentary.

Hannah 29 Dec 2010 at 12:37pm

Fun, fun, FUN! I’m excited for you—that you and Lillian got such a white Christmas (almost on time), that you were close to such a great playground as Central Park, that you had people to enjoy it with, and that you southern-hemispherers finally understand all the Christmas carols, poems, stories, and photos with SNOW in them. Not barbies (BBQs) on the beach! :)

Eva and I had a great time with four inches of snow in St. Louis. Watched a crew building a snowman monster (maybe 8 feet tall with giant feet and a spiky tail) and built our own Dickensian snowman sitting on a park bench across from Crown Candy, a wonderfully good and historic ice cream shop and candy store…97 years old. Crown Candy was amazingly busy on a snowy Christmas Eve, and the corner got even busier as the word spread around the neighborhood that we were building a lifelike snowman. It was a highlight of our trip, especially all sorts of people asking if they could take their picture with it. Will send photos sometime.