Blizzard 2016

When I grew up here in Pennsylvania, I remember the snow days. especially when there was no school. This Blizzard is supposed to have been the 4  largest ever recorded! I remember one storm when we lived in Levittown, around 1958, there were 10 foot drifts and we played pioneers, like Little house on the Prairie. We had no electricity so mom and dad put the food outside in the snow. We cooked in the fireplace and walked around the house with flashlights! It was great fun! Then when we moved to Devon/Valley Forge we couldn't wait for the snow so we could go down the hill at the Park with the statue of George Washington, and of course we loved skating at Narrigans Pond.

Here in Philly, We found that they sled down the stairs at the Art Museum, you know, the one Rocky runs up to get in shape for his fights.

The Blizzard preparation happened on Thursday for us. We went to two grocery stores, we couldn't find a parking place and then couldn't find a cart. We only really needed TP because, as many of you know, we Mormons always have food storage and we still had ours from when the Pope came and they told us to be prepared. But, we shopped anyways for the necessities like..cheese pretzels,

 ( it is so hard to find the kind I like). frozen yogurt  (Jim ends up eating most of it ),Licorice ( I still haven't found the family pack with black and red, but I end up eating what ever we can find which isn't the best), all the marked down Christmas goodies at Aldies..anyways, we didn't want to die without having some of the necessary goodies.
 So, when the snow started Friday evening we were ready, And it was a blizzard all day Saturday.  I cooked for 3 hours, making soup, breads, cookies and broiled veggies. I worked out twice and we cleaned our Apt.! Later we got to go down to our neighbors and share a movie on their big screen TV! What a treat! A perfect snow day for us!
 Church was canceled (we were to have Ward conference with a lot of visitors ) so we had all of our neighbors come to our Apt. for a large FHE at 10am. Jim prepared a lesson ., What does with real intent mean? and I prepared the game ( of course ) Temple Trivia. The latest is 149 temples with our Philadelphia Temple's open house beginning Aug 5th. After church we took a walk to find the beautiful city of Brotherly Love covered in snow and sun.

Here is my favorite spot, the Schuylkill River kind of half way frozen over. I remember George Washington and how he had to survive outside in Valley Forge during the war, how he crossed the Delaware all in the name of Freedom for this Nation.

Today here we can worship many religions with out persecution. We are still trying to figure out how to be a kinder, more gentle nation. We are still trying to find a way to keep God in our pledge of Alligence , the way our founding Fathers originally intended. It is my prayer that we continue to grow together peacefully