Snow day :(

Well, at least the kids were excited!

(Gavin taught Rachel how to make a snowball, and she promptly threw it in his face - she thought it was hysterical!!)

Ugh.

These trees are not supposed to be lying on the ground ten feet on our side of the fence. They're our neighbour's trees, and normally they stick up in the air like, you know, trees.

79 and counting!

We're in the middle of quite a heat wave here, and the inevitable has finally happened: the temperature didn't drop enough last night for the house to cool off, so we started off the day with the house already warm.

The result? It's only noon and it's already 79 degrees in here. If the house heats up by about the same amount as it has been over the last week, I would guess it will be about 86 degrees by this evening.

Is it any wonder I've been checking out 'homemade air conditioning' links on the web?!?

Ding dong, the snow is gone!

OK...mostly gone! Sunday was the big celebration day of the last of the front yard snow melting, and after some serious spreading out of the backyard snow piles, I would say that tomorrow at around 12:17pm (just a guess) will be the happy moment for the back yard as well!

We were just discussing the other day how it seemed like one day we thought winter was going to last forever, and then suddenly the snow was almost gone! It looks like we're going to have a fair bit of raking to do once the grass dries out (that's what happens when it snow so much in October!) but it's nice to be outside and enjoying the spring. I even spent some time turning over the dirt in my flower beds yesterday - with the sun on my back I was actually HOT! I need to get everything ready for flower planting when I can because I'm not going to have much time this year to get things in - I'm due eight days after the long weekend!

Going, going...

Slowly but surely, our many feet of snow are melting - maybe it really will be gone by Gavin's birthday after all! (I was convinced he'd be having a toboganning party in May!)

It seems like every day last week I could very obviously see the difference in the snow level, and by the end of the week, the increase in the visible grass every day! This week is supposed to be colder and rainy (why does the sun always disappear when Greg goes away - I need sunshine!) but I am feeling like spring is in the air finally!

It's hard to get perspective from a photo, but the snow pile at the bottom of the deck stairs is still about 3-4 feet tall, but that's still a lot of progress from being taller than Greg!

Greg and Gavin shovelling out the water from underneath the swingset...but no water in the house, thankfully!!

I don't think you're supposed to be able to do this...

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We woke up yesterday to a 'little bit' (close to an inch in places) of freezing rain - whee! We sent Gavin out to play...with his hockey helmet on.

Digging out from the big storm of '07

Most of Alberta was hit by a big snowstorm this past Tuesday and Wednesday - we got about 16cm snow, which isn't that bad, but the wind blew constantly for those two days and left behind some massive drifts in places!

Our neighbors had a snowdrift taller than Greg on their driveway blocking in their vehicles! (We were able to just shovel the driveway out.) Greg attempted to go to work on Wednesday afternoon, and almost didn't make it. As it was he called me when he got to work (which is only four blocks away, remember) and said it was a really bad idea to even try - a ton of snow got sucked into the engine as he plowed through the drifts in the middle of the road, and the smell from the engine was so bad I could smell it on Greg's clothes when he walked in the door. The car seems to have survived alright, though...

Even on Thursday there were only two kids at school in Gavin's class - the busses still weren't running and a lot of the town kids tend to stay home when they hear there's no busses. :)


The sidewalk leading from our back gate up to the deck - honestly, it was bare before the storm came.

Our front sidewalk the morning after.

We opened the back door to put out some garbage and were surprised to find a big snow drift against the door!

Things seem to be getting back to normal now, although there's still a few roads in Beaverlodge that haven't yet been plowed. Just crazy Alberta weather, I guess!

Good morning, Winter!

It started snowing lightly around 5:30pm yesterday, and apparently continued all night, because this is what we woke up to this morning! (And there's no temperature above zero forecasted for the next week, so we'd better get used to it.) :(

'It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...'

Did you know that technically September 15 is still part of the season called summer?!?

Then Why. Is. It. SNOWING?!?