Snowy Days

December 14th brought our first snow of the season. The kids were so excited and we let them play in the snow before church. The snow was so dry that most of it just blowed away. They couldn't really make snowballs with it. I didn't get any pictures of that morning because I was preoccupied with the smoke from our fire that kept blowing down our chimney. Our home smelt like a campfire!

Faith, like many other children in the area, hoped that school would be cancelled that Monday. She was quite sad to find out that all the schools in the area, except Vancouver were closed! We got a little more snow that Wednesday and they did cancel school. It snowed much more on Thursday and school was open. It didn't make much sense to us. And then Friday it continued to snow and school was cancelled again! And the snow just continued to fall and fall! Church was even cancelled. We got snow everyday for a week and it actually stuck around.

We had "Artic Blast 2008" which was the worst snow storm in this area in about 50 years. The city pretty much shut down. I was out and about that Saturday trying to get everything done before the big storm hit. It was fun, until it got pretty icy! We went to a progressive dinner the night of the big storm and the snow made it so exciting for me. I'm a desert rat and have never seen snow like we had. I loved it! Snow beats rain any day. I wish we were more prepared for the snow though. I had some boots, but we had to buy the kids snow boots. Cayden had some snow pants that his cousin had outgrown. Faith forgot her snow gloves in her desk at school. And we had perfect sledding conditions nearby, but no sleds!

I loved watching how the snow continued to build up. I couldn't believe how much snow we got! We needed chains to get in and out of our neighborhood. The sad part about it for me was that as PDX struggled to stay open, my sister's flight was one of the 215 flights cancelled the Monday before Christmas. My parents were supposed to be sealed in the Columbia River Temple on the 27th and that had to be postponed. My parents were able safely to make it up from Waldport to spend Christmas with us though. It just took them ALL day!

Snow on our roof.

I hope that this won't be the only snow of the season. I love how beautiful the world looks covered in a blanket of white! But the rains have returned and it's like we never had any snow.