Snowmageddon 2019

Rarely do I adopt the media trend of naming storms/weather events with catchy names. This time, I have to admit, that it really fits the situation to call our recent set of snow storms (4 in a week!) a true snowmagedden.

It all started about a week and a half ago with the first storm that left us with 4-ish inches of snow on the ground. Pretty. Easy. Snow day. No biggie. Fast forward over the next week, we got enough snow over the next few days to break the snow record for February... and then we got 3 more inches of snow! We are such overachievers here!!!! We wound up with 14" of snow on our deck. Hello!!!

The kids, being typical "the snow doesn't stay long in Seattle" kids wanted to take full advantage of every moment in the snow. We had to practically bribe them to come inside when all of this started. By the end of it, they barely noticed the piles of snow outside because it had become old hat.

Last week, they either had no school. late starts, or early dismissal due to the weather. This week, they haven't had any school until today (Thursday) and tomorrow was supposed to be a teacher in-service day, but the school will have classes instead to help get another day in the books. Eric and I were really mean parents who made them read and accomplish something each day ... we are such meanies!

One of the multi-day projects for the kids was their snow fort on our deck. It kept them busy for hours upon hours and they worked together really well. Once our snow shovel arrived (before that, they were using my little gardening spades), their progress went into high gear!  By the end, it reminded me more of Mt. St. Helens after it blew and Eric decided it was Crater Lake.

Falling snow

Our rhodies kept getting weighed down by the snow

Snowy deck

Our deck steps ... incognito 

Snow kids

SO MUCH SNOW

Conor making a snow angel

Starting their fort project

Fort progress

Conor and his snow man

 

Snow total before the last storm brought in 3" more

Hello, my pretty!

Catching snowflakes on her tongue

More fort progress

Cold smiles

Big tools for big jobs

We are now officially in the sloppy thawing phase. When the snow arrived, we watched our neighbor's roof slowly disappear under the snow; now we're watching its slow reappearing act. At night, we're still dropping below freezing, so there's lots of ice to contend with, but less each day. We, unlike many people in the area, never lost power, which we are very grateful for. It flickered a few times, but that was the extent of it. I can't help but wonder if my tulips that started to peek their noses out of the dirt before the snow arrived will be stunted by all of this craziness .... only time will tell!