More snow & bathroom painting

We didn't quite have a snow week, but we did miss more days of school (3) than we had this week (2). The first round of snow came Sunday night and hung around through Wednesday morning, but the schools were ambitious to get at least one day in. So, everyone around us started on time on Wednesday (but allowed all absences to be counted unexcused so parents could use discretion about transporting their kids to school). Wednesday afternoon finally made it above freezing and Thursday was pretty dry. However, the snow was projected, and it came again. And it came pretty fast and furious--for Oregon valley standards.

Ricky and I met his friend Tim for dinner and a movie (the UO football team got free tickets and Tim gets the perks since he "works" for them as an Athletic Training graduate student). Due to the logistics of the ticket getting and movie times, we ended up going to a 9:40 movie...and at 11:40 when we got out, the parking lot was white with snow. The snow wasn't the problem, though. It was the previously damp ground that was now solidly frozen under the thin layer of snow--and we didn't have a "good" option home (i.e., every way we could think of involved a curvy hill or clover leaf). We took our best guess on the safest route and slid (literally) down the one place that we knew was risky--a curvy, relatively steep off-ramp. It was scary, and we watched other cars slip and slide into each other. However, we didn't get a scratch on us or the CRV.

We made it home slowly and carefully about an hour later (the drive is usually about 10 minutes but we had to go a longer way home to avoid hills/clover leaves as much as possible and we never drove faster than 30mph). I must say, I have never been so relieved to see our little house. If you know me, you know that I am not a "risk taker" but instead tend to play it on the safe side, especially when it comes to things like venturing out in bad weather. But, sometimes life happens...

It snowed really hard last night and early this morning, and I took new snow pictures this morning. Keep in mind all the snow from the previous pictures was totally melted when the new snow came. It was pretty, but luckily, it warmed above freezing today and much of the snow melted about as quickly as it came. So, in a last-minute decision, we decided to pack up this morning and head to Portland late this afternoon in hopes of catching the "calm between the storms" (another is heading for us tomorrow morning) for the drive. We did. The interstate was clear and even dry for much of our trip to Portland. We made it in time to have dinner at one of my favorite restaurants--Noodles & Company and work on some last-minute Christmas shopping at one of the nice malls in Portland.

So, I write this from the comfiness of my hotel room. We've watched snow showers off and on tonight, and there's now a pretty layer of snow covering the cars in the parking lot out our window. We have tomorrow to spend either lazing around our hotel room or venturing to the shopping near by instead of having to fight the weather and possible hazardous driving conditions getting here. We should be able to physically make it to the airport Sunday morning (since we can see it if we squint when looking out the window)--now we just need the weather to be clear enough for our flight to take off. Keep our safe travels in your prayers.

Enjoy the new snow pictures, and for Laura, the pictures of our newly painted bathroom. :)



Our house.

Our dogs enjoying the second good snow of the week.


Re-painted bathroom. The picture below is closer to the actual darkish brown color--Ricky says it has to do with the white balance in the camera setting...