Serious Weather

I don't read a lot of blogs, but one of my favorites is Lindsay Ferrier's Suburban Turmoil. She recently wrote about the hype that the news industry provides when it "snows" in Nashville, and by "snow" she means, a light dusting that looks a bit like the first hard frost of the year that we used to get in Seattle when I was growing up. Yes, Nashvillians don't know how to drive in it, and yes, sometimes the ice, especially if it's black ice, is quite dangerous, but the hype is well, mostly just hype. You can read her hilarious post here: http://suburbanturmoil.blogspot.com/2010/01/omgsnow.html.

Here in Pittsburgh, however, it's safe to say that we have been having some serious weather. We returned home on January 6th to 20 degree temps and 6 inches of snow on the ground, and for almost two weeks the temps stayed below freezing, and from the 6th through the 11th it snowed a few inches every day.

The most dramatic effect of all of this weather has been the icicles. I've tried to capture that drama in these photographs, but they don't quite cut it.

In this picture above is the view out our kitchen window, looking towards the back of the house.

Here's the giant sword shaped icicle that hung out of our kitchen window. It joined with other icicles, like a creature in a horror movie, and then got longer!

Here's another view of that monster icicle. Josh eventually broke it off and brandished it about the house!

Last Saturday I took the kids out in the snow at the high school next to our house. It was the perfect temperature---about 30 degrees, and the sun was just starting to set. Here's Casey. You can't see her new white snow boots because they are buried in the snow!

Before Christmas a friend made fun of my very expensive (even 70% off!) black fake-fur lined Uggs that I bought in 2008. But who is laughing now?

Here's Jacob!

Here's the snow angel Jacob made in our driveway!