Jenelle thinks these pictures show how much Annika looks like Jonathan when he was little. What do you think?
Monthly Archives: December 2008
A White Christmas in the Making
In our last episode, the Portland metropolitan area was shut down for a day when several inches of fluffy snow showed up. That proved to be just a test run for the arrival of the real snow. The Sunday before Christmas, over six inches of fresh snow fell from the sky. By Sunday night, our street looked like this (click on the photo):
The snow kept coming daily until we had about ten inches at our house. Areas at higher elevations had eighteen.
As you might expect, this caused transportation havoc. We were really glad to be staying home for Christmas. But, as you all know, when life gives you snow, you go snowshoeing. We never thought we would be able to snowshoe by just stepping out our front door (or while being pregnant with twins), but it happened.
While we are grateful that the snow has stayed long enough to give us a White Christmas, we’re looking forward to The Great Thaw of Late 2008. You can see more photos here.
For some perspective, compare how easily we were amused by a “White Christmas” last year.
Affordable Housing
Jenelle and Jonathan built a gingerbread house this year. Normally, this would be too ambitious a task for them, but this year they took the easy route and purchased a kit from Costco.
So, that probably means the house is the gingerbread equivalent of manufactured housing. You can see more photos here.
Let it Snow
Given Portland’s temperate climate, the local weather experts are surprisingly fond of predicting snow, ice, freezing rain, or a combination of the three. Usually, nothing that exciting happens, except maybe a run on snow shovels at the hardware store. (Hmm — is that why The Home Depot sponsors the weather page in the local newspaper?)
Well, this time the forecasters were right. Our unusually warm and sunny fall ended this morning when several inches of fluffy white stuff began falling. A few hours later, we heard that all church meetings had been cancelled for the day, thus dispelling Jonathan’s visions of snoeshowing to church.
The “Curse”
When my siblings and I were young, our mother would occasionally become frustrated with one of my sisters. Sooner or later, Mom would end a discussion with a daughter (or both daughters) by saying, “I hope all of your children are girls!” She said the words like she was casting a curse.
Well, it didn’t work. Actually, my youngest sister Autumn is now the mother of three boys (and no girls). And when Jenelle and I went to the ultrasound clinic this past week to learn the gender of our twin babies (due in May), I realized that Mom had been “cursing” the wrong children all along.