Snow and Snow and More Snow...

One of the reasons we decided to move to Washington is because there are seasons. We missed having a fall, winter, spring, and summer. In Florida it's mostly summer with a few cool days thrown in there. The neat thing about Puget Sound is that while you get the seasons, the winter is somewhat mild. You might expect trace amounts of snow, but it's not like you're in Minnesota. I actually have a colleague who works in Spokane, WA and he told me that he moved away from the Seattle area, to the eastern side of the state, because he wanted real seasons with real snow in the winter and real heat in the summer. So I moved here for the seasons. He moved away because Puget Sound wasn't season-y enough!

So most people who live in Puget Sound are not used to great amounts of snow. The area completely shuts down for an inch of snow: people do not know how to drive in it and there are not enough resources to plow and de-ice the roads. Now imagine 12 inches of snow. And imagine that snow and ice continually falls on the area for two weeks. We've got major freak-outs going on here. Everyone loved it at first. It's exciting for the kids to play in gobs of snow. Everyone got an excuse to take a day off work. The ski resorts were finally able to open. (Picture of the front of my house is after the first snowfall. The picture of my backyard is after the most recent snowfall.)




But now, people are sick of it. They're tired of being snow-bound. They're tired of being stranded at the airport. Christmas shopping has been frantic in the few hours between snow storms. I'm tired of having to drive to work in this. (Because, of course working for the state means that no snow days are declared. If I can't make it to work I am not allowed to work from home. And if I can't make it to work I have to use up one of my earned vacation days. I only gave up one day so far. Otherwise, I've been going to work. I leave a little later and come home a little early to avoid the icy roads in the dark, but I am NOT giving up my vacation time for this!) I'm a fairly good driver in the snow. I did learn to drive in Germany after all. But, there's not much you can do when there's a foot of snow on the street and you try to get to work and your little Honda Civic gets stuck in between the driveway and the street and neighbors have to dig you out (because you waited too late to buy a shovel and then every store within a 30 mile radius was out of them). There's not much you can do when your place of employment won't shut down, but won't plow the parking lot, so your little Honda Civic gets stuck (AGAIN, ON THE SAME DAY AS THE ABOVE INCIDENT) trying to park. There's not much you can do when your street is a slight incline and the city hasn't plowed it once in the two weeks since this has started, and when you turn down it you slide right past your driveway and your yard and have to beep your horn so teenage boys get out of the way. So yeah, I don't mind driving in the snow. But I do wish I had 4 wheel drive every once in awhile.

So we've got lots of snow. It's absolutely gorgeous. And I love having a white Christmas. It's great to have Christmas music playing, your tree lit, cookies baking, and snow falling. And we're supposed to get MORE tonight. But I think everyone is very anxious for it to get back to the typical Seattle winter rains. This is definitely a Christmas to remember...


The progression of snow over two weeks...