Wacky Weather

We ended up getting a LOT more snow. Between 8 and 10 inches. Maybe more. Around here that is fairly unusual. Still, it would have been manageable - without the ice storm. After a few snowy days the temperature rose and the snow switched to rain and we thought that was the end of it, it would be gone by dinnertime - boy were we wrong! The rain and warmer temperature only had time to melt SOME of the snow before the sun went down, the temperature dropped and the wet slushy snow became a thick sheet of ice. Yikes.

this is the road in front of our house, I don't think the snow plows ever did make it up here

But wait - there's more. The trees were all weighed down with ice, more than they could handle - and branches started breaking everywhere, falling on power lines and cutting out power to over 200,000 homes and businesses - ours included.

beautiful but dangerous

We were grateful to be able to get our gas fireplace working and huddled around it for a little while before deciding if we were going to be cold and miserable, we might as well join the rest of my family who were probably doing the same and certainly had more non-perishable food to share. We were able to drive over there safely enough, but as more ice built up during the day we were unable to drive home that night and didn't feel like walking up that big icy hill in the dark. Luckily my parents had room for us and lots of blankets so we had a little sleepover party.

I remember as a kid it was always exciting when the power would go out. We'd pull out the candles and flashlights and bumble around the house before bedtime. But I don't remember it ever being more than a couple hours. This one lasted about 30 hours for us (several days for many others), just enough time for most of our refrigerated items to spoil (though our freezer was fine). Dad grilled us some hamburgers. We roasted marshmallows. Just your typical winter evening barbecue...

Daphne helping restock the fridge. My mom was smart and packed most of their food into snow-stuffed coolers outside.

After a few more days of warming temperatures and lots of rain, the snow and ice disappeared. But there was still a mess of branches to clean up. Luckily we don't have any big trees in our yard to worry about, but we opened our window during the big freeze and looked out behind our house (where there are several large trees) and heard an almost constant cracking and breaking and crashing of limbs. One of those "cool" but humbling moments with nature, when you realize how powerless you are against the elements.

So it was back to typical Washington weather for a while, then things really lightened up - we had three or four days of SPRING! Sunny skies with barely a wisp of a cloud and temperature in the upper fifties to low sixties. It was wonderful. And we were outside as much as possible. Some good times included trips to the park, to the lake, and washing the cars. It got us all excited for "real" spring and even summer and we started talking about all the plans we have for warmer days. The only bad thing about out-of-season weather is that sooner or later you have to get back to the season it truly is (winter) and remember that you still have at least a month or two of that. Sigh. Oh well. It was nice while it lasted.

Here are a few pictures from our visit to the lake. We had to let Daphne feed the ducks and of course she loved it. She was pretty good about breaking the bread and getting it into the water, too. And (no surprise) totally fearless when it came to being around scores of almost equally fearless ducks. Then she and Aunt Kelsey threw rocks in the water, we played on the merry-go-round at the park and just walked around a bit with Grandma.

Washing the cars was a first for Daphne, and she jumped right in with enthusiasm. She was pretty much soaked by the end.

Such a good helper. Hopefully she keeps that willingness to do the dirty work.

As you can see, she preferred a very hands-on approach (though she did eventually switch to a washcloth).