MERRY CHRISTMAS!

There will be many Christmas' this year, the first being today!

It is a most beautiful Winter White Christmas, my first white Christmas.

Three Generations

Great Grammy with Isabelle

Snowy Photos

Enjoy some photos I have taken. You can tell what I went outside to take, and what has been taken from inside. :)

Stormy Day!

Animal Tracks... neighbor dogs

Beauty after the storm

Random picture of snow

Little Maple tree out front

Front Porch

Eric's Adventures

Adventures in the snow will continue for many posts. Eric's adventures started when he wanted to go to the Seahawks game last Sunday. It started with him trying to get his car out. He backup.. oh about 3 feet, started to turn the car and it got stuck. For about 30 minutes, he tried everything to get it unstuck; plywood pieces, shovel, turning the tires... No luck.Side note: Eric had built a larger shelter for our goats over the summer, and the night before the storm, Eric closed the one wall in so not as much wind could get in. Unfortunately, three of the goats did not let in the forth goat, and he was mostly frozen. :( So for about an hour, he and I got all the goats into the garage, one at a time. It took that long, since we had to leash each one up separately and take through many feet of snow to the back door of the garage. You can see what the back door looks like in the previous post with the tree in the truck.

Currently, they are thawed out and in a make shift pen in the garage. Though still cold in there, it is protected from snow and wind.

Back to Eric's adventures... he still wanted to go to the game... so after 'playing' with his car and after saving our goats, he decided to warm up a bit and then head up to the top of our road where my car was parked. Trekking through FEET of snow (pre-plowed road) he finally made it to the top and proceeding to dig out my car from where it was parked. Once done, he made it out to the main road and out to the city, where there was pavement for roads instead of packed snow and ice.

When he came home, Eric was unable to get the car to its previous parking spot, so he parked it on the main road and got it stuck. The next day, after delivering Christmas cards to all our neighbors and sharing snow stories, I dug out my car from the snow on the main road (the snow plow - yeah that it came through - had buried my car) and then went to start it to move it back to its spot at the top. Unfortunately, it wouldn't start. It tried and tried, but there was no go. I knew it wasn't the battery, but couldn't figure out why, and neither could neighbors that tried helping me. It got dark, so I walked home by the moon light.

Ever noticed how beautiful it is to walk in the snow by the moon's light? If only there was a way to capture it and share with you.

Earlier, this same day, about 9 am (if you know Eric, he is not a morning person) we got a call for help. A neighbor's septic was backing up and needed the help of Eric and others to dig down to find the caps to do whatever it is to septic tanks to fix them. Eric brought his shovel and went to dig. A bit over 5 hours later, in he walks... with a story. They dug through 7 feet of snow to reach the cap. It was the wrong one. They dug again, in a different spot where the other cap was. Finally after another 8 feet of snow, they reached the correct cap. Eric climb his way home over drifts of snow and had a nap with Isabelle on the couch.

The next day, day two of the plowing our private road, I went up to check on my car and as I walked up to it, saw the problem from the day before... the exhaust pipe was full of snow and ice! With a BIG stick, and about 15 minutes of chipping away, I cleaned out the pipe, undug my car again (snowplow) and started the car without a problem. I went to the store (since a new storm was coming in that night) to stock up again. I came back, parked in my spot at the top of the road, and two sled trips later, I was home with all the groceries.

Eric's adventures continue with chopping wood in the terrible wind and blowing snow. As long as we stay warm with our new stove, we are good to go!!!

Photos of Eric.

Eric's car today, after the latest storm.

PS... there is another one expected Friday through the weekend.

Winter Storms

Yes, You read right... I said storms with an 'S.' We are on our 3rd, maybe 4th storm now... I lost count. We are under so much snow! We have canceled all our plans. Last Saturday, I went to GH to pick up my grandmother to stay with us till and through Christmas. My parents were supposed to come in today to stay with us at our house for Christmas, but GH has declared a state of emergency, which means they are under lots of snow and ice. My parents also live on a hill, so they are pretty much stuck. Christmas with them may be on New Year's.

We have had to also postpone Christmas with Eric's parents till unknown date. Unless they all want to come here Christmas Day, park their cars at the top of the road and trek down a 1/2 mile to our house... but they didn't like that idea too much. ;)

Another party postponed was our annual trip to Eastern WA, with some friends to their cabin. We offered them our snowy abode, but that was also declined. Nobody wants to walk 1/2 a mile in the snow... go figure.

Without further adu... here are some pictures of our beautiful white winter wonderland!

(You may wish to view other pictures of the blog (normal days) to truly see the snowy affects. It is hard to take a photo of snow drifts... it all looks white).

That is our Christmas Tree, still sitting in the back of the truck. There is so much snow (about 4 ft or so next to the back of the house) that the tree pot is frozen to the truck. We do have a tree inside though, no worries. When I was at my parents house, my mom told me to cut down a little tree in their back yard for Isabelle. Her little tree is now our tree. :)

What steps?? There were three there at one point. Now just a trail. After last nights wind storm, some of the railing and that bin has disappeared.

Here is part of our driveway. You can sort of see the rolling hills of the snow drifts. Find the post with Isabelle with the apple... you sill see this same shot in that post, snow free.

Our Neighbor, trying to plow our private road. It took him close to 20 hours to plow from the top our driveway (we share a driveway entrance) to top of the road. He finished yesterday, just in time for last night's storm to hit. He was out again this morning starting all over, since the wind blew more snow on the road.

This is a 6ft fence... Mt. Rainer is just to the right of the fence post, in the pink sunset.

Coolest Video

Well, it's probably not the coolest video... but Isabelle thinks it is, and that is all that matters.

Catching up

Time to catch up on some photos from the last month or so. There will be more as I download more.

Christmas came early here... We got Isabelle a super nice wooden easel with chalk board on one side, white board on the other and a roller of paper in which she can use with paint in the farther future. :)

Trying on big shoes.....

Smelling big shoes....

STINKY shoes!!!!

Our Family

Pink Stay Puff Marshmellow Baby

Yes, a long title for the cutest little girl ever. We have had all the snow, but we haven't gone out to play. Today we did... I got her all bundled up, then put on her pink snow pants, her pink snow boots and her pink and black snow jacket with pink gloves, a white hat and a black scarf. Yes, there was a lot of pink...

Enjoy!!

What's that on my hand??
I told her to eat some.... she said 'no'

Stay tuned for the stay puff!!

This last one is here to show just how beautiful it is looking at our back yard. I love the snow on the tree branches.

The Snow Fun

Well, we have had snow here, you read about it a few days ago and now it is time for some cool pictures!!!

This was taken 20 minutes after the storm had begun... the winds were so fast it was like mini tornados... I tried to capture one from inside, but that proved difficult. As you can see, I got myself in the above photo... I wasn't going outside! :)

The gust of wind is there right above the cars. This was about an hour into the storm. The poor roses.

The next morning... check out the table top to the middle left of the picture... watch that table over the next few days of pictures...

This was the day that I wentout and got stuck on our road... which is now plowed thanks to our neighbor. I wish I could say the same for our main public road... That story will come later

Our Christmas Tree... yes, it still sitting in the back of our pickup... It is a live tree. We wanted to plant the tree after Christmas, instead of giving it to the goats for a nice snack. But it can only stay in the house for 7 days max (rules), so it is staying outside till Sunday.

The bird bath in the fron rose garden...

That was all Sunday night and Monday morning.......

I now bring in today: Wednesday

The back deck...

There are more, but they include a cute little girl in a lot of pink...

I hear too that there is a new storm coming in on the weekend... More pics fromteh window possibly. :)

Adventures in the Snow

Hi all!

It has snowed in Ravensdale!! And unlike the rest of the area that got a dusting, or maybe an inch or two, we got 6-8 inches. Bring in the heavy wind storm and we got 3 plus feet of snow drifts.

So yesterday I went out, to do some last minute shopping... and it took about an hour to get from our front door to the top of our road. The story goes like this:

Out the door, all bundled up with a scarf and gloves and a layered rain jacket (yes one of my purchases was going to be a new snow jacket, since the one I have is from 11th grade and the sleeves are a bit short now... so it was time to splurge) and of course boots that my pants fit down inside of. The car was covered with not only snow, but a nice layer of ice under the snow, about a half inch. So with my trusty scraper I began scraping off the snow and ice. About 20 minutes later, I was ready to go. I will say that having the car running with the defrost on helped a ton... It could have been longer.

Did I mention the wind yet?? Oh GOODNESS!! THE WIND!!! We had gusts up and past 60 mph. Twirling, Swirling winds that blew the scraped snow right into my face. (When I eventually came home and glanced in a mirror, I saw that my cheeks and nose had gotten 'burned' by the icy wind. CRAZY)

Ya-hoo.. I was in the car, got it in reverse, backed-up, put it in drive and off I went... down my drive way... no problem, not even a little slide... this is no big deal. Out of the driveway, I turn onto our private road... no biggie. There is a neighbor plowing his driveway, (that must be nice to have a plow), I wave to him as I pass. I see a littel snow drift, about a foot or so... ok, ready... GO. I slowly go through the drift. Yes, I made it! There was another one, it was longer but it didn't seem any higher. I got closer, it got bigger, then visibility went from great to non-existant as a huge gust of wind and snow completly wiped out all sight of the drift. I kept going... and going... and then sideways... and then spinning tires. I was stuck. The drift was bigger then I had expected... a lot bigger. It was about 3 feet on the short end... closer to 4 near the fence line.

I knew what to do... my neighbor can dig me out with the plow. As I opened the car door, the bottom of the door scraped along the top of the drift. ooh, I was really stuck. So in the wind and blowing snow, I walked back down the road... I found my nieghbor and out he came to dig me out. About 25 minutes later (yes, that long... it was hard to work when you are getting blown over and sideways and trying to walk through the drifts) I was finally free. My neighbor also plowed that part of the road so that I could get out the rest of the way with out getting stuck again.

Yeah! I was driving down our road again... and there was another drift. This one was smaller at least. Looking back in the rear view mirror, I saw my neighbor sitting in the plow, waiting to see if I made it through that drift... how nice he was!!! (Santa will be good to him this year!)... I made it through that one. Yes! There was the main road in site. And there was also some ice ... and there was another neighbor's fence. Three feet from the fence I stopped... I got out to chat with these neighbors for a bit (they saw me sliding their way and came out for a bit).

So, an hour after leaving my front door, I finally got on the main road and off to do that last minute shopping. The roads in the city were fine... a bit of snow on the road but nothing big if you were going slow (unlike the truck I saw on it side with its windshield hanging off and all cracked up and its cab completely crumpled). And yes, I got my new jacket... it is WARM!

The adventures in Snow Land have just begun. The winds were up to about 75/80 mph last night, luckily none of our trees fell down, and the power was only off for about an hour. This gives us an excuse to read and play card games by candle light and cuddle by the fire. The whole time hearing Isabelle call out to watch "Diego." They are calling for another snow storm to hit on Wednesday...

I am working on pics, but for now, stories will have to do.