Snow Day #3

I woke up this morning to find more snow. At 6 o'clock this morning, when I got up to call work to let them know the I would not be in due to the weather & road conditions, there was no snow on the Tahoe. I got up for the day about 2 1/2 hours later to find this. And the weather man said no snow for today??? It continued to snow until about 11 o'clock at which point I decided to get out of the house with the dogs so I dusted off my snow boots...haven't had to use them in years...got out my heavy coat, scarf, and gloves, and layered on the clothes.

The east wind had blown the snow up against the front door. I had to push real hard on the screen door to get out. See how deep it is. The is about 2 inches between the top of the front porch and the thresh hold into the house. I was able to get this shovel but I didn't even try to shovel the walk. There is just SO much snow. I started to shovel the driveway so that Jack could get the X-Terra out of the garage to go to work but I noticed that there is a layer of ice under the snow so I stopped because I thought it might make it harder for him to get out especially since it is up hill to get out of the garage. We will have to re-evaluate one he tries to get it out.

The dogs had a good time running around in the deep snow & catching snowballs. They haven't been out too much so it was good for them to use some of the pent up energy. I was going to walk them down to the far end of the block but the snow was so deep I had a hard time walking through it. So we just walked to the neighbors boat.

This is a picture from the back yard. Notice my black compost bin & the fence are almost covered.

We were outside for about an hour while it wasn't snowing. Almost as soon as we came in it started snowing again.

There is so much snow that the city is having a hard time keeping up with the removal. The Mayor of Gresham has declared a state emergency because fire, police, & ambulances are having a hard time getting around the city.

At this rate, we will have a white Christmas. It would be our first since moving here.

Taser fun!!

The week after Thanksgiving we went to Utah to visit Jill & Keith. We had good travel weather...not a single snow flake even in the mountains. It was great being able to spend time together.

One morning Kenton & I painted while Jill was busy tidying up after the morning rush to get kids to school.

The night before we left Vince & Rusty came over. They are 2 guys that Keith & Jack have been friends with since they were all teenagers...they have been friends forever!!! It is always fun when old friends get together. While Jill & I were talking about what color to paint the master bathroom the guys had broke out the taser for some fun.

They wanted us to join in the fun but we both refused. I was fine just watching. Joelle was the only girl brave enough to participate. What a trooper!!!

Now Vince, on the other hand, he is just plain crazy. He is always the first one to step up & try some crazy stunt. Years ago, he let Jack try his paintball gun out on him while wearing just a t-shirt. He had HUGE welts on his back from that.

Canceled Again

Yes, church was canceled again. This time I think it was a little more justified. It snowed most of the day yesterday. It is a little hard to tell how much we really got because it was windy all day also. As you can see from the pictures we have big snow drifts in the back yard. The front yard is the same. We have places were we can still see the grass but it is so piled up on the front porch that we can barely get the front screen door open. Early this morning the freezing rain started. So now we have a thin layer of ice covered everything including the snow. The dogs have had a fun time playing in it. They don't seem to like the cold. They only like to be out for a few minutes & then they are ready for their warm cozy inside beds. Can you say "spoiled"???

"Church is canceled"

I woke up this morning to a little bit of the white stuff. Wasn't surprised because they have been talking on the news about the impending snow for 2 days. It wasn't snowing very much..I could still see green grass... so I proceed to get ready for church. Just as I am getting ready to get my dress on the phone rings. It was my visting teaching partner calling to tell me that church has been canceled. Really??? It made me laugh. Portlander's don't deal with snow very well. Everything shuts down at the first sign of a flake. Anyway, I made a phone call to my visiting teachee and we both had a good laugh about it. Then the home teacher called. While I was on the phone with him I took another look out the window. This is what I saw....

A Blizzard!!! It is suppose to snow off & on all day with high winds from the Gorge. Needless to say, the grass is now covered. But still not a "ton" of snow. Still makes me laugh.

Milo is very interested in the snow but everytime there was a wind gust he would come racing back into the sunporch....it was funny.

Thanksgiving

Paige, Doug, and kids made their way to Oregon for the Thanksgiving holiday. We had a great visit with tons of yummy Thanksgiving food.

Here is Jack preparing the 2 turkeys for frying. YUM!!!















Then Jack putting the 1st turkey in the fryer. The fried turkeys are great. They take no time to cook and are really yummy and moist. And also frees your oven up for other cooking.

Here are the kids ready to eat our feast. We had fried turkey, ham...both because the 2 turkeys were small...fryer can only hold a 10 lb turkey, along with funeral potatoes, sweet potato cassarole, Paige's homemade rolls, raspberry preztel salad (it was my favorite...and the kids too...it was the only thing I didn't have leftovers of on friday), cranberry sauce...from scratch..no canned stuff at our house...stuffing, and broccoli. All SO good!!!

We were greatful that Paige & Doug could come visit. We had a fun time & were so glad to have them.

Another Four-Wheeling Trip

Yesterday, we went four-wheeling in the Tillamonk State Forest with 3 of Jack's co-workers. We have had some pretty wet days over the last 2 weeks so it was a muddy trip but luckily it didn't really rain too much yesterday. Mostly just drizzled. And it wasn't really too cold either.

As we were driving down one of the trails we came across this little off shoot of a trail that was super muddy with lots of big holes but no rocks. Jack decided that he wanted to try it. I was in the truck the first time he tried and then got out to video the next 5 or 6 attempts. He ended up not making it up. It was so muddy and there was this huge hole he couldn't get past. By the last try the tires were so caked with mud you couldn't hardly see the tread on the tire and it was so slick that the tires were just sliding along the ground when he put it in reverse. We had chunks of mud flying all over when we got back on the gravel trail.





After lunch, we tried to find the Rock Garden trail (see the first video of The Beast) but we had a hard time finding it but we did come across a trail called "The Waterfall". The trails are each assigned a difficulty rating, like snow sking trails, with blue being the easist and triple black diamond being the hardest. Well, The Waterfall is a double black diamond. At the top of the trail we stopped to check it out (we didn't know what trail it was and the difficulty level because the maker was at the bottom and we were at the top) mostly to see if 2 of the stock rigs we were with could make it down. We quickly figured out that those 2 rigs would NEVER make it down but Jack thought "The Beast" could and that his buddy John could make it down in his Toyota. So they took a shot at it. I opted to be the vidoegrapher for this run. I think I would have wet my pants if I had been in the truck!!! It scared me just to watch. Maybe next time I will be brave enough to ride along. Jack of course had a BLAST!!!


Waterfall Part 1




Waterfall Part 2

We ended the day with lots of mud on The Beast and a couple new dents...can you see the new ones? It was a good day!

Jack's Mosaic

I decided Jack needed a mosaic also. Same questions...some different answers, a couple the same. Can you guess which ones?