blizzard!

We are in Inverness for David's seminary classes.  The weather here is absolutely incredible.  It's the closest to a blizzard that I've ever experienced!  We are staying in the Beauly manse which is about 30 minutes drive outside of Inverness, and although there is a good 18 inches of snow on the ground and the car has gotten stuck repeatedly going in and out of the driveway, the weather hasn't been quite as remarkable as in Inverness itself.  We drove into Inverness this morning -- I got a lift with the boys to spend time with my friend Esther who lives just down the street from the seminary while the guys were in class -- and it was snowing, but the roads weren't too terrible, and the driveway to the church/seminary building had been mostly plowed and was accessible.  However, that was at 9am -- and we had to leave at 3pm and get back to Beauly -- and it was practically blizzard conditions during those six hours!!  I was in Esther's kitchen watching the snow blowing like crazy outside and thinking, "Hm, I wonder if we can get back?"  So it ended up that the guys had to shovel the car out twice because the drifts on the seminary driveway were over two feet deep and the car got totally jammed!!  There was a bitter wind blowing the heavy snow every which way!  So that made the first part of our journey back to the manse quite exciting.  Thankfully most of the way back the roads weren't too bad (outside of Inverness the snow wasn't falling as heavily).  However, classes have now been canceled for tomorrow (because there are blizzard warnings for the Inverness area), and those who are needing to travel back to Glasgow are having trouble figuring out how they are going to travel back because the buses aren't running, the motorway is closed because of heavy snow, and the trains aren't running because there have been derailments (thankfully only freight trains).  We are supposed to travel to Leverburgh on the Isle of Harris on Thursday morning and not sure that we are going to be able to leave Inverness - will have to wait and see!  In the meantime, we have a nice cozy warm house, fun fellowship, and huge snowdrifts outside -- we've started building snow forts in the back garden and plan to have a massive snow fight tomorrow!  :-)