Winter & Christmas '08

Well it's been awhile since I've written. It doesn't seem like we've done much lately, so that may be why no posts for over 3 months. I thought I'd take a minute and post some pictures and write about our December. Well Seattle received it's biggest snow storm in over 20 years. Here in Kent (in which we are virtually at sea level) we had about 8 inches. Other areas were hit much harder and had between 12"-24". It was a mess! In fact, there was so much snow that I didn't work for 10 days. It was great! The kids sure loved the snow! I usually enjoy a good snow storm, but it was so cold. It didn't get above freezing for almost 2 weeks. I guess I should not complain, Spokane had over 60" of snow in the month of December and I don't know if they have even been above freezing.


During our snow storm, Natalie's parents came from Texas and visited us for the first time in Seattle. I don't know how they did it, but they flew into Salt Lake, then went to Boise, then came here, then Spokane, then back to Boise and finally ended up in Salt Lake again to catch their flight home. This, all during the worst snow storm! We sure enjoyed having them. It's too bad the roads weren't better as we have so many places we wanted to take them, but for the most part we were stuck at home.


Because I was off work, we took advantage of a break in the storm and headed to my parents house in Kennewick for Christmas. Christmas was on a Thursday, and we left here on the Tuesday before and came home the Sunday after. The way home we opted to take the longer, but safer route through Portland home to avoid going over Snoqualmie Pass. We had a great time at my parents. Tyler and Heidi flew home from Utah, so everyone was there, but Jake, who is in the Dominican Republic. During our vacation I became an addict of the board game Settlers of Catan. Unfortunately, Tyler was the one who received the present, but I think everyone knows what to get me next year! In Kennewick they had about 16 inches of snow. When we first arrived it was just too cold to play in the snow, but the last few days there it warmed up to the point where we could play in the snow. We made a family of snowmen...including the snowmen family dog. We also made a little playground for the kids with a slide...all out of snow. The following day it warmed up enought to basically melt everything away.