Countdown Day 2: Flowers and Ice

I had a plan for this 14-day countdown. I saved a few photos and hoped to find a few more to cover the time I had promised to celebrate Roger's countdown to chemo freedom. I had thought today might be the day to post this photo I took a while back of these amazing shafts of light pouring into the yard between the sunrise and the oak.
But then two snowstorms plowed into us and changed everything. And, if that wasn't enough, we had two nights of very hard freezes.
Suddenly there were foot-long icicles hanging from every eave.
And our early-blooming camellias faced the cold breath of the north and became natural painted ice sculptures.
I'm sure images like these are fairly commonplace in more northern latitudes where severe winter storms are expected, but here it's been other-worldly and magical.

OMG! In addition to all of that, only two more days until Roger is finished with chemo!!! Can you hear us whooping and hollering already? We have a plan that involves a bottle of champagne sent to us by a fellow blogger and Facebook friend. I'm pretty sure on March 2nd we're popping the cork on that bottle. Care to join us in a toast?

PS: As of Sunday afternoon at 4:30, we still don't have power. Roger discovered that the power line from the transformer to our house is down. Uh-oh. Our little neighborhood was scheduled for a 5:00 pm reconnect to the bigger power grid, but it won't matter now until our little connection gets hooked back up. He also found the telephone line on the ground, but still connected (hence we still have our phone and dsl service). No telling when any of this will be repaired. Oy.