White Week

It was a very white week in Sunnyside. Winter came early! The ground was covered in snow all week long, with another layer falling partway through the week to freshen it up. Monday was a snow day. Tuesday and Wednesday were school days. Thursday and Friday there was no school due to elementary parent teacher conferences. Suffice it to say, it was a weird wintry white week! 

Jeff was mostly recovered from Covid by Monday, but he still had Monday and Tuesday at home to finish his five day quarantine. So we had some rare one-on-one time during the middle of the day together. We started talking and ended up planning our whole summer, seven months early. 

Other things that happened this week:

• On Wednesday, I took advantage of the break between winter precipitation and drove the 40 minutes to Costco and WinCo. I stocked UP on pretty much every food item ever invented, and the trunk was loaded so full. I set the Costco rotisserie chicken on top of a sturdy row of 5-lb flour bags. When I got home, I was dismayed to discover that the rotisserie chicken had tipped sideways during the drive, and four bags of flour were covered in the slime. Because it was so cold, the chicken juice had congealed into a thick gel which made it interesting and wobbly to wipe up. The unloading process after a big pantry-restocking grocery trip is always arduous, so adding the rotisserie chicken spill to the ordeal wore me out! I was late to my friends' birthday lunch thanks to that blasted chicken. The collective cringe and gasp of sympathy when I explained to my friends why I was late to lunch was gratifying. Thank goodness for paper towels and rubber trunk liners.
• On Thursday (no school), Rose and I both got our hair trimmed at Catalina's in Sunnyside. Salon haircuts are not cheap, but it was a pleasant mother-daughter outing. I was brave and drove on the scary wintry roads two whole miles from our house to the salon. It started snowing while we were in the salon, but thankfully we made it home before the roads got worse.
• On Friday (also no school), I found out that my good friend's mother in law was killed in an icy road car accident just a few counties over from us. It was so tragic and hard and terrible, and made me even more tense about winter driving, if possible. I drove extra extra slowly on my way to the church building to help set up for our ward Christmas party. It took me more than twice as long as usual to get to the church, which is only just over four miles from our house. We used all of the clippings from our Christmas tree to decorate for the ward party. It was amazing how much Christmas cheer we got from that one tree! Branches from our tree decorated an entire gym full of 24 tables, plus our own happy tree at home as well. Somehow it took five adults (and five kids) three hours to get the church ready for the party!
• Friday afternoon, Jeff coached his first high school swim practice in an actual POOL! 3.5 weeks into the swim season, and they finally got to swim at practice! Jeff took Jay with him to practice and said Jay was the 3rd fastest swimmer on the team of 7 boys (most of the team are beginners). Jay came home exhausted. "Dad's swim workouts are killer!"
• Friday night was a winter storm advisory and we didn't know if the ward Christmas party would be cancelled or not on Saturday night.
• On Saturday morning, the roads were slick, so Jeff cancelled high school swim practice. Thankfully the roads were softened enough to be passable for the ward Christmas party by the evening. I've been in various Relief Society presidencies for the past almost four years and this was the first time the Relief Society was in charge of the ward Christmas party. It went well, but I must say I would be ok if it's another three or four years before we're in charge again! 

The kids played in the snow on all of the no-school days. I did not choose to play in the snow, so I have very few pictures of them playing in the snow. I'm glad they had fun sledding and exploring and building and warring! I did have to exact some motherly influence to get them outside by the weekend, though. One night I had to cancel screen time and send all three kids to bed early at 7:30 due to fighting. The next day I enforced more outside time. The combination of more sleep and exercise mitigated sibling conflicts over the next few days.

This week's pictures make me cold. I went on one snowy walk and three snowy runs this week. It takes a lot of energy to exercise outside in 24 degree snow.

I walked on the canal road in the fresh snow on Monday. My ankles don't do well running on gravel/dirt roads that are covered in snow.

Snowy tumbleweed.

Walking in 4 inches of snow is annoying! I found a tire track to follow for a little while that made it easier.

Home sweet home: Monday.

Home sweet home: Thursday. Note the freezing fog crystalizing in the tree branches.

Amber loved all of the icicles hanging from our roof! I reached up and grabbed this one for her.

Rose built an elaborate snow fort to protect herself and Amber from Jay's snowball barrage.

Our landlord had the half mile paved pathway behind our house plowed, so I was able to run on it on Tuesday. 

Same view on Saturday, after another night of snow. On Saturday, I ran on the paved pathway in 3 inches of fresh powder because it was grippier and more stable than the slick roads, and still preferrable to the treadmill.

Tuesday

Same pathway view, Saturday.

Wednesday: Costco and WinCo filled the trunk to bursting! Doesn't that rotisserie chicken on the far left look firmly wedged in place? I thought so, but it wasn't.

It was so cold on Wednesday that our icicles had frost on them.

The kids came home from school on Wednesday and had Costco croissants dipped in hot chocolate for a snack. Mais oui, c'est delicieux!

Haircut time: before pic.

Catalina is a darling sweet lady who always gives us hugs after our haircuts.

After: our snazzy new haircuts. I let Catalina curl my hair and felt very much not like myself when I looked in the mirror, haha. I have never once in my life curled my own hair, so it is not my style. Rose has fallen in love with her darling bob cut and it totally is her style. We both came home smelling like salon fumes and three days later I swear I can still smell it in my hair! Fresh haircuts feel good.

What do you do right after a professional curls your hair? Cram it in a hood and go on a run? Me too! This was the only day all week that I felt safe running on the wintry roads, so I ran five miles to take full advantage of it.

This sign looked so bright and colorful in the black-and-white winter landscape.

The frost thickened in the tree branches until they were veritable snow queens delicately laced around our house.

The kids did a lot of building in their free time. Rose and Amber like to build marble runs with the magna-tiles and then hide the marbles somewhere in the edifice for each other to find. "Don't watch me build this--that's cheating!"

Amber, reading Diary of a Wimpy Kid books (groan), with icicles lined up outside the window.

Jay enjoyed building tall towers out of cardboard bricks and then knocking them down. The kids asked me to take pictures of their various tower creations so many times that I told them to take their own pictures after the first few towers.

This is what the roads looked like for most of the week. My least favorite.

Wintry wonderland outside my window.

Freezing foggy winter wonderland outside my window. 

Sisters, reading together on the couch--Rose will sit and either listen to Amber read or trade off reading pages with Amber.

We got some Christmas gift wrapping done this weekend. It is very hard to get Amber's actual face in any picture when she doesn't have a scrunchie in her hair. Her hair covers her face like a curtain. Somehow she peeks out from under it and gets things done.

The real question after this white week is, will it still be white for Christmas? I kind of hope so, but...that would be two more entire weeks of this weather and that is a lot, especially for a town that rarely, if ever, deploys snowplows.