Snow Day!

We received a few inches of snow this afternoon and with Kristin tied up on a 2-hour conference call with her study group, it was up to me to walk the dogs after their dinner. I always enjoy walking them in the snow and today didn't disappoint. They were a bundle of energy after spending a long weekend cooped-up at the kennel while we were in Whistler and they wanted to run.

Though most of the sidewalks were either shoveled or partially melted, Annana wanted no part of the sidewalk. She blasted her own path through the snow on the grass, despite it almost coming up to her stomach. She sought the snow so much that she even long-jumped over patches of sidewalk so as to not step foot on clear ground. Those of you who don't own a dog might be thinking I'm personifying her actions a little too much, but she was every bit the schoolkid playing games in the snow. Watching her, I was certain she was making a conscious effort to keep all four feet in the snow at all times. And the deeper, the better.

We rounded a corner two blocks away and I heard the voice of a young boy. I couldn't see him at first due to the tall hedges that formed the perimeter of their yard. Instead, all I heard was, "Ohhh, yeahhh. Awww, yeah!"

Then, just as I catch a glimpse of this little five year-old being towed around the yard in a sled by his father, he lets out an emphatic, drawn-out, "Awww, yeah! That's what I'm talking about!"

Now, where did he pick that up, I wonder?

I soon realized that I had forgotten any baggies to clean up after the dogs so I attempted to distract the dogs with a speedy gallop through the snow before one of them got the itch to take a squat. They were all for running in the snow and though I slipped and slid a bit, it's always a great joy to watch these two dogs run through the snow. They seem to always want to go a bit farther and a bit faster when there's snow on the ground. Kimo and Annana will be turning 11 and 10 years old this spring, respectively. I'm really glad to still see them moving about like they do.

Would You Please Get Your Snow Off My Front Porch

Had a spontaneous blizzard party last night with friends of ours who live in the neighborhood and didn't want to brace for the power outage alone, so they came up the hill to our place for drinks, pizza, and presumably, some board games-by-candlelight.

The snow started falling around 4pm and the winds started to pick up shortly thereafter, hitting the expected gusts of 50 to 70-mph after 7pm. The house went dark around 9pm. The power came back on for ten minutes an hour later then went back out for good. We expected it to be out for several days and were stocked up on everything we'd need to get through the long days ahead: three boxes of Zatarain's Dirty Rice mix, a couple pounds of ground beef, and a bottle of 16-year old scotch.

We tipped back our beers, spiked our hot cocoa, lit plenty of candles, and played Cranium until midnight. Just to make it seem like we were taking the situation seriously, we wound up the crank-able emergency radio and tuned in to the emergency weather stations. Yep, high winds and lots of snow. Got it.

With the temperature in the house starting to drop, our friends decided to try and go home to where their own stash of warm clothing and battery-operated DVD players awaited them. Only problem was the near-hurricane force gusts had buried their Jetta in drifts of snow. Always looking for a reason to go and play in the snow, I quickly volunteered to drive them home in the Element.

If you have the opportunity to go driving around at night in a blizzard, I highly recommend it.

The wind was howling, the snow was coming down with such force you couldn't even see the house across the street, and there was nobody on the road. The snow at the end of the driveway was pretty deep, but the main streets were blown free of snow. All except for the road at the base of our friends' driveway. Good times were had, alone on the road in a blizzard at midnight, spinning donuts and powersliding in the snow. Yes, with the top-heavy Element! Although I must say, my snow tires might be a little too good, as it was a bit harder to slide than in Kristin's Civic (yeah, nothing like powersliding on the snow in a hybrid to make the kids point and stare!).

The power company was hard at work all night long, in the cold, during the blizzard, and somehow got the power back on by 5am. Major kudos to the guys from Puget Sound Energy -- those guys rock!

Anyway, I woke up this morning to find 8 inches of snow on our covered front porch and drifts of snow up to three feet high on our front steps. Across the street, the neighbors have barely a trace of snow on their grass or in their driveway.  The cars don't have snow on them. The rooftops are snow-free. It's all in our front walkway. All of it.

Note the lack of snow across the street.

I broke my main shovel digging out the front walkway this morning, then proceeded to break the emergency telescoping shovel I keep in my truck. Nothing like breaking two shovels in twenty minutes shoveling snow that nobody else seems to have.

Now I have to shovel out the garage, and no we didn't leave the door open. The wind was so steady and the snow so light and fluffy, that it blew in from the tiny gap on the side of the garage door. That was a first.