Ice Ice Baby

So I was wrong.  I didn’t want to believe all the hype that it would snow.  Me and the weather man…we’re mortal enemies.  He always promises snow and totally under delivers.

Yesterday morning the phone rang at 5:00.  It was the school calling to tell us (again) that school had been cancelled.  I rolled over (again) and asked Derek, “Did it actually snow.”  He looked out the window and said, “Um, you could say that.”  I rolled back over and slept until 8:00.  When we finally got up and looked out the window there was about 6″ of snow on the ground.  I’m fairly certain that constitutes a “major snow event” in the Pacific Northwest.

I believe that was the fastest I’ve ever seen my child eat a meal.  As soon as breakfast was over he was in his snow pants and out the door.  He begrudgingly came home for lunch, but other than that he spent the entire time either outside or at neighbor girl’s house.

We were good parents and joined him a few times.  Right in front of our house is a great sledding hill.  We live at the bottom of 2 good sized hills.  Great for sledding, but horrible for trying to leave the neighborhood.  The bigger hill is a little more fun to sled down, but it’s more of a hike to get up it and people park their cars on the side of the road.  The one right in front of our house is perfect.  Not a horrible hike, no cars and when you get to the end you’re right at our driveway.  I took one for the team and hurled myself head first down the hill a few times.  This morning I feel like I was hit by a Mac truck.  Apparently old people should not sled.  Duly noted.

We got the call last night that school would be cancelled yet again today.  Wonderful.  Derek was supposed to fly to Spokane at 11:00 this morning for a meeting.  He got word from the airline that his flight is cancelled and he’s rescheduled on the 4:00 instead… for now.  Why?  Ice.  Oh the ice.

In 1996/97 we had an ice storm.  Ask anyone about the “ice storm” and they’ll have a story.  We happened to be visiting family in Kansas that year and missed the brunt of it.  When we got home our car couldn’t make it into our apartment complex so we had to park on the street.  Then we had to wade through calf deep ice water carrying our suitcases to get to our apartment.  Fun times.

This year the ice isn’t quite that bad… yet.  When we woke up this morning there was an odd sheen to the snow.  Ice.  The sound of the dog running around in the back yard was ka-chunk ka-chunk.  Walk outside and it’s a totally different story.

We live in an area where we are surrounded by 250′ tall Douglas-fir trees.  We admire them, but fear them at the same time.  Any time it is windy a branch might come down on your roof.  Now take that same 250′ tree and cover it in 1/4″-1/2″ of ice.  No Bueno.

Since we woke up this morning it has been raining.  It is freezing rain my friends.  At the current moment it is raining heavily and it is only getting worse.  In fact, as I was writing this a huge limb broke in one of the plum trees in my front yard.  I’m going to lose at least 1/2 of the tree.  It’s down right scary.

Luckily our power was only out for about an hour.  That isn’t to say it won’t go out again, but at this moment it’s on.

Ok, here have some photos.