Oh, snap! Yessiree, for us it's a snap all right. A winter snap like I haven't seen since moving here in '02. We even ditched the snow shovels when we moved here.

If you look closely, you'll see our van in the background. The driveway was shoveled with, well, actually Taylor and I raked it.

Mind you, we're going on a week and a half of freezing temperatures, and today was our second snowfall in a wee, and there's allegedly more on the way this Saturday. So I guess it's a good thing I'm getting tires Saturday.

I think I'll look into chains as well. After all, on Sunday we head out to Michigan. All four of us. Our first vacation together as a family. The little stipend I make for a years volunteer work, and training and classes and duty shifts paid for the tickets. With $50 to spare. Here I was figuring that we'd be leaving our island where it rains and is grey and coolish to head off to frozen tundra Michigan. Silly me. By the looks of things, I'll need those chains on Sunday. Todays higway trips in Seattle, through which we pass to get to the airport, were fiascos. Just log onto KOMO 4 news and look at the archives. While you're there, check out their archives for the fire we had on Monday. Two houses lit off, well, one lit off and the other by virtue of guilt by real close association. Past the third alarm they simply called for all available bodies. that's when I left work to help. I leftwork at 0900, and returned after lunch. I work til four, and the fire crew was just leaving the fire when I left work. When I left it at noon or so, I was helping the overhaul operation, and we were preparing to foam down the remains of the second unit to prevent any reignitions. Anyway, the KOMO 4 helicopter buzzed over us a couple times.

So Happy Holidays to all from the frigid Pac Northwest! Next week when we are in Michigan our island will return to it's normally scheduled environment.

Whoa baby! Was I wrong. I am now updating this post when I should be in Michigan. The weather is what went wrong. We headed off the island on Saturday, knowing a new storm was coming in. We ran into it on the highway about half way to the airport. So it was 30 mph the rest of the way. We checked into our hotel, which is the best way to navigate early flights. The next morning, it started snowing again, and the flight cancellations, begun the day before, started escalating. For our airline, our flight was one of two canceled. So we strarted the options train rollling while the snow continued to fall. One option was another flight. Those were all standby, and the computer and phone systems at the airlines were beginning to fail. Another was to rent anSUV, which just might be cheaper than four tickets, and drive the one way to Michigan. The one and only option wanted $2000 for said trip, sans SUV and gas. Considering the mounting threat of closed mountian passes, we ruled out that option. Another option was to ask for our money back and try another airline. At the rate flights were cancwlling, those flights were dwindling fast. We found one, and then the trick was trying to get through to the original carrier for a refund. So Jode checked her e-mail, and lo and behold, they had already moved our reservations to three days out. Considering that she and I had been on the phoe with the carrier, Northwest Airlines, several times that day and all referenced to our confirmation number, it was rather frustrating that nothing had been said to us about the change. So we left for home.

In the snow, at 30 mph all the way home.

And it snowed. And snowed some more.

So much in fact that we now have a foot of the stuff in our yard. And we are possibly getting more! Arrgghhhh!

I'm still trying to get to Michigan. We have another early AM flight, so today we will leave for Seattle, and hopefully catch a flight out tomorrow morning to join the family in Michigan. Tonight another front moves in with the possibility of more snow. Not much, but if the airlines get nervous and cancel flights because our airport isn't designed for snowy runways, then we might be back, no. I'm not going to believe that.

Michigan here we come!

(By the time we get back, all this snow will likely be gone. That will be weird.)