Season Openers

Yesterday was the first game of the season for both David and Adam. David is playing soccer and Adam is in baseball.





And even though yesterday wasn't her first game of the season, Rachel has been enjoying dance. Here's a couple numbers she did at her last recital in December. (I forgot to post it up at that time.)

Snow Caving

Our first time snow caving. We went to Timberline Lodge on Mt Doom...er, I mean Mt Hood.

Lessons learned:

#1 David learned that jeans aren't very warm in snow, especially when wet.

#2 I learned that a plastic tarp on an icy cave floor likes to quickly find the lowest point in the cave.

We slept horribly, but we had fun. Timberline Lodge is beautiful and I'd like to go back there in the summer...maybe even next winter for some skiing.

Welcome!

Why move? When I put together my last (first) blog I did it in kind of a hurry and never thought it would last very long or that I'd use it much at all (not that I have used it a whole lot). And at the time I made it I wasn't trying to be super creative with the name. Once I came up with a name I liked it just felt like it was too late or too much work to switch. But I figured I'd just go ahead and rip the bandaid off, so here it is. The new blog home. Same Blogger service, just a new URL.

Welcome to the Caffwa Cwanico!

Caffwa: How I said "Catherall" when I was a kid.
Cwanico: That would be how I probably would have said "Chronicle."

I've moved all my old blog posts here except a few. The geekier posts I've moved to an entirely new blog.

Introducing...the Tinkering Lab! I'll be keeping my more geek-centric posts there.

Oh, gee, it's up to my knee

We got another 6-8 inches today, on top of the (now thicker) layer of ice, that's on top of the 6-8 inches of snow from 2 days ago. I actually had to go out and...*gasp*...shovel it. I haven't decided if it was punishment for being a homebody for 10 days or if it was exercise. Either way I wasn't liking it.

I didn't really have to shovel it. But it was almost too deep to walk through and it is probably going to get worse over the next week. So I figured I might as well start eating the elephant.

Snowed in!

We've seen some crazy weather the past week. Last Sunday we got our first snowfall...and much more than we're used to getting here. Portland is not well prepared for getting this much snow, so usually even a little bit will cause school delays or even closures. This was supposed to be the last week of school before winter break, but the weather caused school closures for the entire week!

I also wasn't able to make it to work for several days. Fortunately I'm able to remote into work and still get things done. So I ended up working from home most of the week. (And as sweet as that may sound it's definitely a distraction when the kids are home too.)

Yesterday and today got even worse though. We got much more snow yesterday than we had all week. Then overnight and this morning we got a freezing rain. So there's about a quarter-inch of ice on top of about 6-8 inches of snow. Just a few minutes ago we were back to snowfall, and as I look out the window right now we're back to the freezing rain.




The kids were picking up great sheets of ice and trying to make an ice fort.


That bush was standing upright yesterday.


Stuck.


We don't get snowplows. I don't think the city even owns any snowplows.


An "ice flower."