Farewell to family, followed by frigid air!

It seems that Norman and Gabi made their way out of Ohio in the nick of time. It was a chilly Tuesday morning when they said their goodbyes. It was an emotional farewell since we became so accustomed to have them living with us, and only God knows when we will see each other again! After drying our eyes, we made our way to the airport, and Norman and Gabi made their way to one of the warmest states, Florida! They arrived there safely and when they spoke to us, they had just been out for a walk on the beach! Here, in Cleveland, we were probably around 90F colder than the southern states! We were experiencing what the forecasters call an "Arctic Blast". Some days saw a high temperature of just 6F(-14C). Nathan even had school this week, when Liesel's car showed the outside temperature to be -5F(-24C)! Ohioans are some of the toughest people I know!

On Thursday and Friday, the air was the coldest I have ever experienced!! The wind chill lowered the mercury to near record lows of -25F (-32C) and with every inhalation of this super-cooled air, the mucous in your nose freezes instantly. I could literally feel the ice crystals forming which, believe me, is pretty freaky!!

Due to the unforgiving cold air, we opted to stay indoors for the majority of the weekend. The only times we dared to venture out, was for some salt to melt the ice on our driveway, and for church on Sunday. We had another decent snowfall of 4.5" on Saturday night - which gave me the opportunity to fire up my trusty snow thrower again :) Of course this new snow, fell on top of the existing snow which was already over a foot high! But Liesel and I love it!!! You can see Nathan's picnic table with snow piled high above it (below). Also note that the snow is at the same level as our second step by the kitchen door!



Tomorrow we have a public holiday, and I think the weather has warmed up enough (20F/-7C) to take Nathan sledding again :) You can tell you have been living in Ohio, when you consider temperatures in the 20's warm :P