Winter Play

Winter has definitely arrived here in Portland. We've had the biggest storm in nearly 40 years, from what I understand from the news. Many major highways were shutdown over the past few days due to falling trees, white out conditions, jack-knifed tractor-trailor trucks, and just generally bad weather. My son and daughter-in-law, and more importantly, my granddaughter are on their way here from the coast were they were visiting her parents, but they've got to take a detour to get around an area of Highway 26 where the road is closed due to fallen trees.

There are people stuck all over. In Portland, only the main roads get any service during a storm. The residential sideroads are left alone and it's up to the ingenuity of the residents to determine how to cope with the conditions. Lots of people, like me, choose to walk to get anywhere. Others have chains, 4 wheel drives, studded snow tires, etc. and manage to get around reasonably well. Others just get stuck (like my granddaughter, Makayla).



The children were certainly having fun. My oldest daughter, Nikki, decided she had to have a snowman. So she badgered her mom until she got her to go out into the backyard and build a guardian snowperson to patrol the area:

Yes, that's one of my good hats, but I let them use it in hopes that it will survive a few days in the cold. As soon as it starts to thaw, though, my hat comes in to dry!

The kids next door had a sled, and as we live on a fairly steep hill, the big kids here managed to borrow the sled for a while (payment was a plate of home made cookies and chocolate covered pretzels).

That's Nikki above, and Wanda below:

Of course, it's a pretty good walk back up the hill:


But it's certainly lovely:



And it's certainly cute when little girls play in the snow:


And the littlest ones can only dream about playing outside: