Its a BLIZZARD

So we have had quite the night here in ol' Bettendorf. Of course most of you are also dealing with the winter blizzard too. I have never seen it this bad...at least since I've been back in the Quad Cities.....2003. Some are saying it is as bad here as the blizzard of 1979?? Well, in these sort of conditions you HAVE to have heat..which we started having trouble with last night. Unfortunately our furnace vents kept getting drifted shut with snow which then of course triggers the furnace to shut off. So starting at about 5PM Eric would go out and shovel them out about every hour to get the furnace back on till unfortunately the intake vent became completely plugged. You can see our several attempts to block the snow with anything and EVERYTHING that we could anchor into the snow to create a makeshift snow fence. But, we quickly learned setting up a makeshift snow fence in the MIDDLE of the blizzard doesn't really work. So we finally gave into the snow and called our fantastic 24.7 furnace guy, who has bailed us out before during issues like this. He very nicely and happily advised Eric over the phone to just unplug the intake vent in the basement on the actual furnace so the furnace could just take in the air in the basement. So luckily that solved our heat problem. Unfortunately that didn't solve our gas fume problem. In all the efforts made to try to find SOMETHING in our garage to block the snow from drifting ( plywood, bags game, wheelbarrow) WE accidentally knocked over the snow blower gasoline container ( you learn very quickly in situations like this to NOT place blame..... so it was a joint spill...:) Due to the severely negative pressure from the blowing wind the house quickly filled with gasoline fumes so we had to keep the man door and the small garage door open just a bit ALL NITE. Which, of course, then let PLENTY of snow into our garage. So poor Eric has been out not only snow blowing the foot plus of snow off of the driveway....but at some point we'll have to clean out the 3rd stall of our garage. Luckily today is my normal day off so I'm home and The Planning Center decided to close so we're all home safe and sound. Looking back it will definitely be a funny story to tell. Seriously it was so cold and windy out there trying to set up plywood, wheelbarrows and bags games....we finally gave up about 9.30PM decided it was a lost cause and the furnace would just have to vent itself off of the basement air, which I think is fine for a short amount of time. THANKS to Grandpa Jim for all the suggestions of how to block the snow....we appreciate it....but I think we were about 6 hours too late!! Take care and stay warm....