Seattle had a major storm last, last week. Areas north of Seattle got between 10-20 inches of snow. Those of us to the south got between 5-12 inches of snow and ICE like I've never seen before!
School was out on Monday because of MLK Jr.'s b-day. The kids enjoyed playing in the 2-3 inches of newly fallen snow. Tuesday was a 2-hour late start.
Late Tue. night/early Wed. morning we got about 5 inches more of snow. School was cancelled. We had friends over and I even bundled up the baby so that I could let him touch snow and take the older kids sledding. It takes 4 hours more for me to do anything nowadays so we "finally" made it out to sled around 3pm. By then, freezing rain was falling. This made for some good slippery slopes but everyone got cold fast so when I said we needed to go home and warm up the baby--all children were excited to leave (this never happens)! (And yes, those are wimpy pool intertubes, because mom still hasn't justified the purchase of buying real sleds for an area that gets only about 2 snow days a year. They still had fun and that's what counted :)
Thursday morning I got up to go running, as usual. My companions and I had to opt for a slippery walk/slide because everything was ice-covered. The poor trees and plants had one inch of ice on them. We saw several downed trees and branches.
My poor neighbors had some heavy boughs knock out part of their deck. He spent most of the day on the extension ladder sawing off limbs with a chainsaw to prevent any from falling on their house.
Thankfully things warmed up on Friday and things began to thaw, but the damage was so sad to see....
There was no school Thursday and Friday. Saturday was spent assessing the damages and cutting up broken limbs. On Sunday we had a combined tri-ward sacrament meeting at a different building because our building was without power.
We are so blessed. I have said countless prayers, both uttered and silent, because of His grace and protection. We were some of the few, in our area, to have not lost power. We didn't have very much tree damage, either. My husband was able to help out a lot at work and I believe we were blessed in his absence and because of the great service he provided to others.
It never hurts to be prepared, people! I can attest to that in trials past and now this!
These three boys all have birthdays within 4 weeks of each other. The goofy one in the middle is my wonderful son.
