Crazy Saturday -- Early Snow

This day started out cold. It was 39 degrees officially (but it felt like34 according to my weather app) as Julianne and I headed to her soccer game at 9:30. The sky was overcast but it was not raining. Her team played hard, but lost again. With about ten minutes left in the game there started to be snow flurries randomly.
 
Our weather forecasters had predicted that starting at about 3:00 that we would have a wintry mix, turning to snow by the evening with accumulation of 3-6 inches overnight. But you know how those weathermen are??  Always willing to predict the worst!!!
 
I was thrilled to get an email from Adam's coach cancelling his game (as he did not want to subject kindergartner's to the cold) and made the decision to go home, contact the other coaches for the 2 afternoon games and cancel them as well.
 
That meant that now we were free to go to the kids' Elementary school for the fall fair. Trent and Owen stayed home (so Owen could nap) and at 11:30 I took the other four kids to the fair. As we arrived at the school some large snowflakes were starting to fall. We had a lot of fun running into the school with these huge snowflakes sticking to our hair. Once inside, I bought tickets and Julianne and Catherine took off together and Adam and Madelyn and I started all the little carnival games.
 
As we wandered the halls I took two photos of the kids artwork or projects on the wall. First is Madelyn's -- She has this picture of her with descriptive words: she is helpful, nice, peaceful, smart, happy and SNEAKY!!! ---She should have added Honest!!!  She really is sneaky!!
 
 

 Next I found Catherine's art.  She loves to draw and on this little five inch square has added so much color and detail.  Too bad she misspelled her name! As we walked by a window I got my first glimpse of the outside.  In the half hour we had been there the snow had started to stick.  I was shocked at how early in the day the snow had arrived.   About twenty minutes later, we were playing another carnival game when I looked out the window and saw this -- now about 3 inches of snow and still falling heavily.  I decided that given the big hills we had to traverse to get home that we had better get on our way.
 I called the big girls and they met us at the car.  I scraped off the snow (although it was tough because it was falling so quickly).  Here is the parking lot.  We slipped and slided and fishtailed our way home.  It was pretty scary driving.  The hills are steep, they were unplowed, and I did not have 4 wheel drive.   This was our house at 12:45 when I arrived home.  The snow was thick and wet and heavy.  It was falling fast.  The trees and bushes were already starting to weigh down since they all still have their leaves.    We sat inside and watched the snow fall all around for about 45 minutes when we heard this big crash.   At 2:30, this tree fell hitting the top deck and making a loud scary crashing sound.  The top of it landed on the trampoline.    What a mess.  We stayed indoors the rest of the night watching the snow fall.   We got nearly 12 inches.  This is the earliest and largest snowfall to hit our area since the civil war!!!!