Welcome to the midwest! We're ice storm virgins from the westcoast.

We are at the OBGYN right now My OBGYN is closed as a result of the level 2 state of emergency Evansville is in thanks to the power outages and road conditions! So I’ve scheduled this post to keep you all occupied until we get home, gather our thoughts and are able to draft up a post about our latest pregnancy news, stay tuned!  Better yet subscribe to the blog so you’ll know when the post goes live first!

Actually, the OBGYN never even tried calling us to inform us of the office closure so we’re not sure when we’ll be rescheduled for the ultrasound, guess we’ll be waiting a while to get news on Tater Tot’s gender… Tater Tot is jumping and kicking all arround as I type this, he too is bummed about the appointment.

Back to the post about our insane storm. Tuesday nights ice storm/ winter weather was pretty crazy for us. Sure we’ve seen our share of several feet of snow and have had driven on slick roads before. We aren’t snow virgins by any means but ice storms are an whole other ballgame, I freaking hate them!

The beginning of the ice storm. Click the images for a larger view.

Last night after N got home from work we had dinner and were watching TV before bed when we started to hear the cracks and moans of tree branches. Rain was falling and the temperature was also below freezing so that meant everything that got wet ended up encased in layers of ice. The rain kept falling and the wet kept freezing until tree branches were covered in a good 1/2 – 1 inch of solid ice.

I love how the fallen leaves froze during the storm. It kind of looks like icicles coming up from the ground.

The trees began to sag thanks to the added weight of all the ice. N parked our car out on the street since our driveway is covered by a nice big oak tree that was not looking to sturdy as a result of the ice.

We would hate to have that nice new soft top we just bought for the car to be ripped and destroyed under the weight of a huge fallen oak tree branch! On the other hand parking the car on the street meant it could be smashed by a person sliding along on the slippery road, it seemed road parking was the safer bet.

So we were relaxing and listening to all the unhappy tree groans when the cracks and crashes of the spent tree branches began. One after another branches came crashing down, some down the block or next door. Others came down in our yard and even right on top of our bedroom. We were amazed and shocked all at the same time.

The first fallen tree limbs in our back yard.

Then the arcing of power lines began. You see when the tree branches come crashing down they often take out utility lines and poles. This results in the most deafening pops and explosions and also illuminates the night sky with blue flashes.

It was a crazy thing for us to experience since we’ve never been though an ice storm before. You see the real scary part of it all is not the loss of utilities for days on end, the poor road conditions or the frigid temperatures. It’s the unpredictable, huge falling branches and trees that are all around your house.

You just don’t know when or where the next branch will come down, you hear crashes against the house and you know if a big enough piece comes down it could very well come through your roof and kill you.

We debated sleeping in the basement or in the hall, you know a more interior room but figured the odds of something coming though our roof were slim. Needless to say we had a pretty sleepless night on Tuesday evening.

It is hard to sleep though the crashes of tree against your roof and the electrical explosions. Thankfully we only lost power briefly at about 2am and nothing came through our roof. Others in the area were not as lucky!

We are though the worst of it all now and are just waiting for the snowploughs to come and for the ice and snow to melt. It is a beautiful day now that all the harm is past. I love the snow! Here are some shots of the area:

See how much ice coated the trees?

Some icicles hanging from our window awning.

Here is our bird feeder all covered in ice and snow.