Oh the Weather Outside is Frightful

I thought that by leaving Utah for Christmas I would be escaping the snow. I'll be honest, I was looking forward to a nice drizzly Christmas. Seattle style. I should have known better when my flight home on Wednesday was delayed for an hour because Las Vegas was snowed in. If Vegas was getting a white Christmas, there's no way Seattle could hope for anything less. I still thought I was off the hook. Not a speck of white when I pulled into my house around midnight. But weather was a'brewin in my sleep because ever since then the whole Seattle area has all but shut down for fear of snow. It's like the whole Seattle Metropolitan Area owns just one plow. Businesses are telling employees not to come in, malls are closing early. A bus ill-equipped with snow tires and a capable driver "careened'' down the street and crashed through the I-5 barrier.
A little scary. On Saturday night meteorologists predicted 80-mile an hour winds. My parents (mom) went into panic mode and (dad) ran to the store for batteries and reinforcements. Apparently our late afternoon preparedness was too late and Safeway was already picked over and the gas stations out of gas.

The funniest part of this weather melt-down is that compared to most parts of the country, the snow and wind are entirely normal. Just a run of the mill part of wintertime. Here's a peek outside in my backyard. Sure, the marshmallow on top of the patio table is more snow than I can ever remember piling up in just a couple days. But what, 8 inches? What a bunch of whiners we Northwesterners are! My sister-in-law Heather grew up in Minnesota and is just appalled that there aren't more snow plows at work. Sand and salt don't do the job, she says.



The consequence of such weather shenanigans is lots of QT inside by the fire. Here's my cute dad napping (as we speak!). You'll notice we have a little midget tree in the background. The parents are scaling back on Christmas this year. Too tired to deal with all those blasted needles from real Christmas trees I guess. They're headed to Cabo on the 28th, my mom explains, "to make sure we don't buy too many presents for you kids." Great! Less presents!

Even still, I'm counting down to a very white, and very merry Christmas!