Dan's getting chains

We woke up this morning to find that we are still getting snow. I looked out the window first thing after waking up and Dan said, "How's my car look?" I said, "Which one is your car?" He said, "WHAT?!? Mine is the clear one. I just drove it home at 7 last night and it was clear!" I let him know that it had a couple inches covering it, and the snow is still coming down.

That was enough for him to decide to get chains today. He woke up early to call Les Schwab, but all of their phone lines are busy. So he just went out in the snow to see if he could get some chains in person. Here are a few shots of him clearing off the car.

From December 2008 Snow

The car behind his was also cleared off late last night.

From December 2008 Snow

I just noticed he doesn't have gloves!

From December 2008 Snow

Good luck finding the road. It's all white down here.

From December 2008 Snow

The Saturn is all ready to make the 5 minute trip to Les Schwab. Judging by our conditions, it will be a 20 minute trip.

Update: Dan said that there is already a 25 person line there, and they haven't been open for even 30 minutes yet! Hopefully they don't run out of chains (or Dan doesn't run out of time before he has to go to work).

UPDATE: No chains. Dan has a very popular size. I might hurt him (as I've been begging him to get chains for a week). If I get stuck in the apartment for Christmas, I will be very sad.

Update part III: Dan got chains in his hand after searching for 2 hours. He texted me while he was in line (30 people back) and said he hoped they were the right size. I looked them up online only to find out that you are NOT SUPPOSED TO USE CHAINS WITH SATURNS! All of the stress for nothing! He was late for work, so he took off, but now we have to decided weather to get chains for my Echo tomorrow, or weather to just stay home for Christmas.

First Day of Winter

Happy first day of winter everyone. The snow has made way for ice. Below you'll find some pictures from this morning. Boston Dan was quoted as saying it was "the worst" he's ever seen (that he can remember).

We worked together to scrape off his car so he could get to work today. Luckily he only has to drive a few blocks, because our parking lot is like an ice rink. Some of the ice from the car was laying on a bed of snow, and it came right off. Some of it was stuck directly on the car, and that was a bit of a bug-a-boo to get off. I scraped off the stairs on the apartment (I'm such a good neighbor), and now I'm back in the cave... I mean apartment. It's not supposed to get above freezing today, and we are supposed to get more freezing rain. Currently it's 23 degrees and it's 10 AM.

I plan to scrapbook Christmas photos that I pirated from all of you. Keep me updated on your weather with pictures and messages!

Here is a plant on our balcony:

From December 2008 Snow

A layer of ice on our balcony:

From December 2008 Snow

Here I am holding a chunk of ice from the Toyota. We are going to use it as a mold to make a chocolate echo. PS... this wasn't the biggest piece of ice from our cars:

From December 2008 Snow

The start of our winter storm

We are just now getting some snow in Vancouver. We have about 1 3/4 inches now at 11:25 AM on Saturday. We are under blizzard condition warnings starting at 4 PM. We are supposed to get about 10 inches in the next 24 hours and winds up to 50 MPH. I know that might not seem like a lot to those of you on the east side of Washington, or on the East side of the U.S., but you have to remember that our entire county only has 3 snow plows.

From December 2008 Snow

This is the frozen duck pond at our apartment complex.

From December 2008 Snow

Don't be fooled... these are not real boulders. They are from the abondoned mini golf course!

We will keep you updated. Stay warm and safe!

Don't mess with me... I have ninja skills.

This is what Dan told me tonight.

I am totally sick. Sore throat, stuffy nose, fatigue, more sore throat... So we went to Blockbuster to rent a video game for the Wii, but when we got there, I realized that I didn't want to get a game that I would have to actually use any energy on. So we rented a couple videos instead (Season 1 of Weeds- 2 disks).

Anway, there is a karate scene in which the kid is wearing a yellow belt. Dan said, "I only got to a yellow belt."

This from my husband. I didn't know he was a trained assassin! I didn't even know he took karate. He claims he took it for a couple of months when he was 10. I had flashbacks of Brandon's karate and of Ross on the TV show Friends.

He ended the karate conversation by saying to me, "Don't mess with me... I have ninja skills."

My husband everyone- the Ninja.

Vote!

Vote.

Carving pumpkins

Dan and I had date night last night. We turned on a scary movie (which was more weird then scary, but it was free "on demand" so we can't really complain), and carved up a couple of pumpkins. We purchased ghost pumpkins this year, which are white with an orange flesh. They look wonderful when lit up. As you can tell by the pictures, we used carving kits. It was Dan's first time using one. I swear by them ever since someone introduced me to them about 14 years ago.

Here is Dan's pumpkin:

From Halloween2008

He was going to do a spider, but it was too hard to trace on his pumpkin.

Here is my pumpkin:

From Halloween2008

Two creepy dolls holding hands.

And here they are together:

From Halloween2008

Oh yes... we also toasted up the seeds with butter and worcestershire sauce (plus some garlic salt). YUM!
HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Fall in New Hampshire

We are home from our trip to New Hampshire (and Massachusetts, and Rhode Island...). We have a lot of stories to tell everyone, but I'll keep things brief on this blog.

We arrived in Boston on Tuesday and drove straight up to Manchester, New Hampshire. We had the pleasure of meeting up with Dan's father, Gary, and his partner/friend, Linda, at Billy's Sports bar. We had a great time catching up and decided to meet again later that week.

That night we got to Karen's house late, but she was just happy to see us. We woke up the next morning and Karen had gotten up early to get Dunkin' Donuts for us for breakfast. Dan was pretty excited about the food. I was happy with the gesture.

From New Hampshire Trip

We had a great lunch at a local spot with both Karen and Gram. We went to visit Aunt Heather, who volunteers at the hospital on Wednesdays (Macaroni day). After that we had ice cream before heading up to Concord.

From New Hampshire Trip

From New Hampshire Trip

From New Hampshire Trip

Gram, Karen, Dan and I all drove up to Concord and the leaves up there were amazing. We went to see Dan's Uncle Don, and his cousins (though we think of them more as nephews), Nate and Matt. They live up near a golf course, off of a driving range (hence the golfers in the photo). We wanted to go out to dinner in a pseudo-celebration of Don's birthday, and after much debate, we decided on Common Man. It was decorated in New England fashion, and was the perfect choice. Unfortunately, Jan (Don's wife, Dan's Aunt) was on the west coast, so she was not able to attend.

The next morning, Dan and Karen went out to a special breakfast all by themselves. They came to pick me up afterwards and we went to go apple picking. We noticed a lot of police in the area, and a lot of vehicles. It turns out that Barack Obama was speaking at the apple orchard!

From New Hampshire Trip

From New Hampshire Trip

From New Hampshire Trip

Very inspirational! At one point he mentioned John McCain and people started to "boo." He said, "Don't boo, just vote." It was raining on us, but I felt lucky anyway. The Portland, Oregon rally drew around 75,000. The Londonderry crowd was only a couple thousand, so it felt very cozy!

Afterwards, we still went to pick apples. I have to say, one that I had at the orchard was the best apple I've ever ate (sorry Washingtonians).

From New Hampshire Trip

From New Hampshire Trip

We spent that night at the hospital. Gram fainted and took a little bit of a spill. She fractured 3 ribs, but she faired much better than the grandfather clock she took down on the way. We also had another chance to see Gary and Linda. We are thinking of planning a trip to Vega$ together next year.

We drove down to Cape Cod (Falmouth) the next day (Saturday) for Tim and Amy's wedding. They had GORGEOUS weather and wonderful ceremony on the Atlantic Shore. We had a great time seeing all of our New England friends and enjoyed spending some extra time with them the next day.

Our last night was spent in Rhode Island. Trevor gave up his bed for us (THANKS WINNIE!) even though we hardly had any energy left for him. Part of the problem was the fact that we had to get up at at 3:45 AM to get to the airport (which is 12:45 our time).

Overall, it was a whirlwind trip!