Christmas Eve

Sending out Christmas greetings to all our friends and family, in far away places!

This has been an unusual Christmas for us; the weather has really had an impact. Most people I talk to here really don't have a sense that it's Christmas. Being snowed in, we haven't been able to do any of the normal Christmas activities. We haven't been to church the last two Sundays. Even last-minute shopping has been almost impossible. Jaime finally dug our truck out, with the help of Chris, and got chains on so that we could spend Christmas eve together.

That's the one constant we have relied on.....spending time together as a family. We loaded our gifts into the truck, and headed to Kayleigh and Chris' for dinner and some Wii !

Darci's perspective

Darci says:

Despite the fact that the snow is preventing me from going anywhere (even though I try) it was nice to have a 3-week winter break from school. Even though the district office made a horrible decision and tried to make us go to school last Thursday. It started snowing 30 minutes after school started and they let us go at lunch.

Christmas eve

Well, it's 6:30 am on Christmas eve - day 3 of the work week. I'm waiting for my boss to come pick me up in his jeep. All our cars are still buried in the snow, and we didn't get chains for our truck yet. The main roads are in pretty good shape......bare pavement but still little slick. The sides streets, however, are a different story. Most cities don't plow the side streets, so we have up to a foot in the street which makes driving a small 2 wheel drive vehicle rather challenging. We have a path of foot steps from our front door to the driveway.......the drifts are probably at least 2 feet deep.

Our (Gresham) city mayor has declared a state of emergency due to the amount of snow we received. Police and fire departments were having a difficult, if not impossible, time getting to emergencies. So, with the declaration of a state of emergency, that brought the National Guard and their Hummers!!!

So, we've decided that a white christmas is way more than it's cracked up to be.

Darlene has pretty much the sames pictures that I have, but I have a few different ones...


This is the Broadway Bridge and part of the Rose Quater covered in snow...

The Broadway Bridge as I was leaving work in the evening...

This is the road leading into the building where I work out of. You can see the blue and white "Water Bureau" sign on the right.

This is how I get around at work. We affectionately call her "the Beast". A '96 Ford, 1 ton, 4x4 van. She's got a 460 C.I. V8 engine that could pull down the moon. The chains are pretty much for show...

So, I have a (1/2) snow day from work. And I thought I would take advantage of the time as well as the pics I've been taking. We had measureable snow for a couple of days last week. We're currently experiencing round 2.......it began snowing friday, and it's pretty much snowed ever since. In addition to the snow, the wind had been blowing through the gorge, from the east. Mix those two together and what do you get? Snow drifts upwards of 3 feet. The forecast says we may not get any real relief until Saturday. The only problem? I'm not quite done with my Christmas shopping!!

Snow Day

This is what we started with last week.
This is what I came home to, when I walked home today.
This was at 6:30 monday morning, when Jaime and I headed for work.
This will give you some idea what the snow drifts are like. The window is to my office, the snow reaching the a/c unit.
This is the first few steps of my journey home monday afternoon.
Somewhere, there's a yard, sidewalk, driveway......
This is what I found at the office............7 am. The gorge winds had blown the snow against the doors, making it impossible to open them without first shoveling. The snow kept coming, the drifts kept getting taller.
This is the same entrance when I left monday, early afternoon.
You can't really tell, but we've hidden a Honda Accord in the street.
And this is the final few steps of what seemed to be a very long journey.