Cold weather topics

Christmas came and went here with some self-indulgent tears on my part, skype with family, events with good friends, and a house plant with candy canes on it that we called our Christmas tree.  That is, until fake trees went on sale the day after Christmas.  Then we got a BIG tree and, yes, I insisted we put it up.  We had a large, decorated Christmas tree from December 26-January 3 and I'm proud of it!  Since my parents got their tree up on the 24th I let them know that even though they tried really hard for the procrastination award this year, we won.  The first Christmas away from home/family was hard, but we got through it no worse for wear.

Yep, we put presents "under" our tree.

We also decorated the mantel with ornaments. Classy.

Our new tradition of lamb on or around Christmas. This year, lamb with bordelaise sauce and fingerling potatoes. Thanks Aunt Jodie for the recipe!

The day-after Christmas tree!

Tom had quite a few days off for Christmas/New Years and I had about six days off around that time, so we were able to spend some great time together.  We decided to take our first really outdoorsy Washington adventure and go snowboarding a couple days after Christmas.  Steven's Pass is only about 60 miles away from our apartment, and it was a beautiful trip up there!  Tom had never skied or snowboarded before, so this was his very first experience.  I had "skied" at Paoli in Indiana (does sliding down a large hill of fake snow/ice realllly even count? probably not) and attempted snowboarding once with disastrous results for my tush. So, I wasn't exactly an expert myself.  We started our day out a little later than we wanted, so we missed the morning snowboarding lesson.  Give two inexperienced people smooth boards, a steep hill full of packed snow, and a couple of uninstructed hours and you will not get a pretty sight  We not only failed at going down the mini-hill, but the rope tow taking us up the mini hill beat us as well. We were not only ugly to watch, we were legitimately dangerous for ourselves and the people around us.  An hour into it we were so frustrated that we dejectedly went up to the lodge, ate lunch, and...wait for it...Tom youtubed how to snowboard.  There we were at a ski lodge and we were YOUTUBING how to snowboard.  BUT that is when the day turned around.  Our stomachs full of overpriced pizza and salad and our minds swelling of youtube instruction, we finally found the bunny hill and increased our skills tenfold.  We practiced until our lesson started so that by the time we left that day we were boarding down the mountain like pros above average first day snowboarders!  We have preliminarily planned to go again with Andrew and Megan in a couple weeks! 

Youtubing how to snowboard

Snowboarding pros on the ski lift!

Another wintery thing we did recently was ice skating! After a day of brewing their second ever batch of beer (hefeweizen with all their fun new equipment they recently purchased/got for Christmas: 9 gallon stock pot, gas burner, and wort chiller), Tom and Jason were just dying to go ice skating.  We had a resident expert, Caitlin, who is an alumni of a college level ice skating class.  The ice had huge craters and the teenage showoffness was at an all-time high, but it was a great time!  Of course, I was thankful that we got there about 1.5 hours before it closed because by the time they kicked us out my ankles were hurting and one more game of teenage tag that almost made me fall was going to force me into a very inappropriate verbal child harassment scenario.

Black swan meets the ice. Tom is just about to throw me into the air as a part of our couples routine.

Finally, Western Washington got slammed with snow recently!  This, of course, following a whole year pre-moving here of me telling friends and family that we wouldn't really have much snow.  YOU COULDN'T EVEN GIVE ME ONE LOW KEY WINTER, WASHINGTON? OUR FIRST WINTER YOU HAD TO FREAK OUT?  Ahem. Where we live got about 12-14 inches. Seattle itself didn't get quite as much, but snow was followed up with an ice storm.  This area does not have the snow plows or salting that I have been used to at home, so it was surprising to see a major road in such bad condition even days after the snow!  My bus got on a modified schedule leaving it unpredictable and slow.  I worked a three day stretch right in the middle of this crisis, so after one day of my commute taking 2.5 hours I decided to accept the hospital's offer of putting us in a hotel.  I roomed with a coworker, and I have to say it was nice not to have to worry about if the bus would ever come or tumbling to my doom sliding from an off-ramp in a bus full of strangers!  The snow and ice is almost gone, but unfortunately surrounding areas are still without power.

Our apartment complex before the second round of snow and ice

The "cold" is indeed here, but Tom and I keep catching ourselves when we think it is really cold and it is only in the 30s.  I won't even try that hard to elicit your visit in this post unless dark leftover snow on the side of the road and gray skies are your thing :)  Although, if you like to watch ice skating, Tom does do a pretty good triple axel-double lutz combination. I'm just saying.  So, go northWEST YOUNG PEOPLE (and young people at heart)!

It is the winter washINgton!