Winter Formal

Seb went with some friends to the high school's winter formal dance, which was held at a local hotel. They met up ahead of time at our house and then afterwards slept over at another friend's place. I asked for photos and eked out this one pre-dance pic. Fun was apparently had by all.

Xcountry skiing at Teacup

Adrienne and I escaped Portland today for a cross-country skiing day at Teacup Nordic, up at Mt Hood. It was relatively warm and raining in Portland, but drizzling snow on the mountain. The snow was very slow, very wet -- we ventured down some steep black diamond runs that we normally would have avoided (out of fear/caution), because you couldn't go very fast.

normal-ish

Friday felt almost like a normal snow day -- everything was still cancelled (the Lion King show we had tickets to attend, school, sports, in-person work) but we were back home and so happy to be here. Our space heaters did a wonderful job of warming the place, even better than we expected. It's been above 65 since mid-afternoon on all three floors, thanks to three heaters (one borrowed from my office). I spent half of yesterday and today in the kitchen, making various things that required extensive oven time (yay for more heat!): baked berry oatmeal, molasses cookies, banana nut muffins, braised lamb shanks, baked pasta, oatmeal sandwich bread.... 

Liesl went to hang out with Ella for a few hours, and Steve, Jasper, and I walked and slid around the neighborhood, marveling at all the downed trees. In the evening, Steve and Seb watched a movie (Heat: a 1995 cops and robbers flick) while Liesl and I did our nails and applied clay face masks. Very gender-stereotypical evening. :)

 

 

Today was back to normal routines, except everything on our schedule was still canceled. Jasper and I went walking around the Skyline cemetery, admiring the icicles; I ran 3 miles along Miller Rd, dodging icy spots; we went grocery shopping; Liesl made ice cream sundaes.

ice storm

Well, it's been a wretched week. The power went out on Saturday morning; it was 19 degrees and snowing, with strong winds, and you could see your breath inside our house. When the power still hadn't returned on Sunday, we went to a hotel in the late afternoon. The room was a bit small for the four of us and our winter gear and electronics, plus Jasper, but it was warm and had power and thus felt amazing.

On Monday, Liesl and I went home to check on our house, and so Liesl could sled with Ella. It was cold but the sun was out -- a beautiful snowy day -- so Jasper and I tromped around the trails of the neighborhood, navigating under and over fallen trees. Steve and Seb walked to a different hotel that had a bigger suite available. They were initially told that they'd get the room at 3, but in actuality they didn't get in until 9 pm. They literally sat and waited in the lobby for six hours -- so awful. At home, power was restored in the late afternoon and we were briefly excited for life to return to normal, but the furnace wouldn't start up, so it remained in the 40s inside. (Frozen pipe in the attic? Other blockage? Who knows?) I didn't want to drive back downtown in the dark, with the ice and snow on the roads, so Liesl and I stayed at home in the cold house on Monday night, so disappointed.

Jasper is buried beneath these blankets, trying to stay warm overnight.  

We drove back to reunite with the boys at the new hotel on Tuesday morning, and had a somewhat normal day. We walked Jasper, charged the Tesla, bought groceries, and settled in. The ice storm arrived Tuesday in the late afternoon, after which the roads and sidewalks were just a sheet of ice. You could skate down the block. We expected warmer air to blow in and a steady rain to melt the ice and snow by Wednesday afternoon, so we could all return home and figure out our furnace, but no such luck. The roads remained covered in ice, especially in our hilly neighborhood, so we extended our stay at the hotel for one more night and ordered pizza for dinner.

 

 

Thursday looked like it was finally the day to return home.  But Liesl woke up feeling sick, and started vomiting. She threw up pretty continuously for a couple of hours and we didn't want to make her move. And the final wrench in this situation is that Steve has an important brief due on Friday -- he asked the judge for an extension, given our power outage, but she didn't grant it. So he was extremely unhappy as the hours and days ticked by, to have no power or internet -- it's one of the reasons he booked the second hotel, to make sure he could keep working. So he was working hard, from 5am, feeling stressed, and Liesl was throwing up, and there was still the knowledge that a cold house awaited us. 

It's 9 pm as I write, and a second ice storm has covered everything. The steps and streets are treacherous -- Jasper slid down our stairs, poor thing -- and the power has flickered off three times but magically returned. We have three space heaters going and I baked cookies and braised lamb shanks and mulled red wine -- it's quite tolerable for now and good to be home. Sadly, all of our friends in the neighborhood lost power at 3:30 this afternoon. We hope that a furnace repair company will come tomorrow, but they wouldn't guarantee it. A tree fell across the road out of our neighborhood, so we're quite solidly trapped here for now. At least Liesl is feeling better.

 

blizzard and no power

A winter storm blew into Portland on Friday night, with 40 mile an hour winds, ice/snow, and temperatures in the teens. Our power went at at 7am on Saturday while the storm continued to gust all day. Liesl had gone to sleep over at a friend's house, and they had power for a few more hours before also losing it at 11. The roads were icy and occasionally covered in snowdrifts, and the wind continued to blow, so we felt stuck in the neighborhood, inside. 

We put all the food out on the back deck, where the ice cream stayed frozen and the milk promptly froze. The house retained some heat over the course of the day, and we could still light our gas stove for hot food and water, but it got colder and colder as the day went on. By evening we were all wearing multiple layers and curling up in blankets and sleeping bags. We had some camping supplies -- headlamps, lanterns, string lights -- but it was still very dark. 

 

On the bright side, we played some games, read books, and had fun together: Seb and I played chess (badly) and Monopoly (hilariously); Steve and Liesl and I played King of Tokyo (which we had forgotten we owned, and were delighted to rediscover). Everyone slept relatively well in their respective sleeping bags -- Jasper curled up in bed with Seb and got under the covers to stay warm.

 

 

But then today was really hard. It was so, so cold inside. You could see your breath inside the house and the hot coffee/tea became cold before you could drink it. Our toes were frozen despite wearing three pairs of socks and four sweaters and fleece leggings and snow pants and a winter hat all of the time. The wind and snow had stopped, so that made it more palatable to walk outside and go sledding (Liesl), but there was still nowhere warm to go when you finished. All of our friends in the neighborhood had also lost power -- every single person that Seb, Liesl, and I texted had lost power on Saturday, so we couldn't go visit friends for a few hours to recharge. So we gave up and drove downtown to a hotel in the Pearl district. We had Mexican food for dinner at La Fondita, and are currently luxuriating in the heat and light and power and wifi.