Christmas Snow

Holy Cow Batman. Remember when I was joking on my last post that I was going to ski to work? Well, I actually had to do that because we got so much snow. And it just keeps on coming!!! To date, Spokane has received 63 inches of snow in the month of December. We got 10 new inches this morning. I have lost count of how many separate storms we have had over the past couple of weeks. Most of my free time has been spent shoveling; clearing off the roof of the boat shed, the porch roofs, the back deck, driveway, sidewalk, doggie yard, etc. It has been amazing. We had to give up on the compost bin and start chucking the veggie matter because we could not get out into the backyard without snowshoes. Like, no shit. The last time I measured snow in the back yard we had something like 34 inches off the back deck. Crazy. You would think that with all this snow I would be out being a maniac in it, but that has not entirely happened yet. With the first 24 inches came horribly cold air, down below zero for almost a week. Roads and street were closed all over the place. That was when I skied to work. My big Solstice performance with the Women's Choir was cancelled. We have been working on it since October. We had to keep the water running in most of the faucets to keep the pipes from freezing. Ahhh, the joy of owning an old house. Nancy and I have also been down to one vehicle...the evil Suburban. But with studded snow tires and four wheel drive it gets us around. My Jeep is great as long as there is no ice and I let it warm up for an hour, and my Blazer has a leaky heater core and I can't keep the windows clear.

We have managed to have some fun. We went cross country skiing up on Mt. Spokane on Christmas day and I tooled around the back yard on my new snowshoes. I just went back on my old work schedule as of today, so I will be back on 4 ten hour days with much more time to play (oh yeah, and get housework done...barf). Anyway, here are some pictures of the snow and different things in my life around the holidays. Cheers!

The house after the first wave. If we only knew then what we know now.

Digging out the Jeep

Elliot's first trip into the bed. He was so brave!

Sophie, snuggly and warm in front of the fire.

Elliot, chillin'

Nancy plodding through the beautiful powder on Christmas day. It was topped off by a fire in the Nova Hut and frozen Snicker bars.

Weird waves of snow over the fence in the back yard

The backyard and cliff behind the house

The snow in the front yard against the 4 foot fence. This was after several days of warm temps that melted a bunch of the snow.