February 2019 will go down in the record books for the most snow we’ve ever received during our 18 years in Washington and for decades before that. It was a crazy wintery month!
It started to snow Sunday, Feb 3 before we headed to bed.
Sunday, Feb 3 approx 5pm
SNOW DAY #1 – Monday, Feb 4
When we woke up there was 8” of snow with 2” more falling Monday morning.
not very often we see our backyard covered in white
Ten inches of snow shuts the city down – so even though we didn’t receive any additional snow for the next few days it took the city (and much of the Seattle area) two days to get unburied enough for school to resume and people to get to work. So…
Justin stayed home from work and the kids enjoyed all the fresh powder. It wasn’t very wet snow, so not the best for sledding or snowballs, but they didn’t seem to mind having to work extra hard to get some sort of sledding track created on the slight hill at the park across the street.
This became the state of our downstairs bathroom for many, many days. We also started to throw everything in the dryer when the kids came in so it would be dry when they were ready to head back out.
SNOW DAY #2 – Tuesday, Feb 5
More fun in the snow… and we made some delicious sugar cookies for a special snow day treat
The kids went back to school on Wednesday & Thursday and still managed to squeeze in a little time in the afternoons to play in the snow which was now packed down and made for some slick sledding.
EARLY RELEASE – Friday, Feb 8
There was more snow on the way and lots of it – and it was predicted to hit Seattle on Friday, Feb 8 around 1pm. The National Weather Service issued a Winter Storm Warning for our area running from noon Friday, Feb 8 through 4pm Saturday, Feb 9. Even though our school district already has early out on Fridays between 1-1:30pm they decided to play it safe and release the schools an additional two hours early so they could be home before Snowmaggeden. So a 2 hour school day today. So interesting too that really everything was closing down by 1pm – businesses were sending home employees, restaurants closing, libraries, the YMCA, everything was shutting down in anticipation of the storm.
Right on schedule – the snow started to come down and it didn’t stop. We received 6” of snow that evening and 6” more Saturday morning.
Jason made a pretty impressive snowman
Saturday, Feb 9
I had just started a challenge to beat my longest streak of 21 days closing the circles on my apple watch just a few days before all this snow arrived. Being active is tough when the weather is cruddy and the gym is closed, so I had to really be purposeful about being active. So this morning I decided it would be a fantastic day to walk down to the ridge and redeem some free donut coupons I’d received during the 12 days of Christmas event. Unfortunately we were a little late in the morning so by the time we arrived there were only a few donuts left. Still good, but a bit disappointing.
Walking down to the ridge wasn’t too bad; walking up that steep hill was really tiring. It’s tiring even without all the snow to trudge through.
Matthew, one of Jason’s best friends was supposed to have his birthday today. They went back and forth whether to cancel but ultimately decided that with 4WD they would be fine traveling into Renton for a fun day at the Flying Circus (a trampoline park). Jason loved it and it was great for him to get out and burn off some energy.
Sunday, Feb 10 – NO CHURCH
Church was cancelled on Sunday. I went on a walk in the morning. I came to really enjoy my Sunday strolls while I was working on my little fitness goal. I would listen to a podcast or conference talk as I walked and enjoyed the quiet, reflective time.
We filled our souls and our bellies from home today. We had our Come Follow Me lesson, enjoyed baking lots of yummy goodies, and played lot of games! It was a really great day together.
brookies, oreo truffles, sugar cookie bars, scones and honey butter!
Yet another storm came blowing through on Sunday night bringing another 5-6” of snow. Carly and I made a few deliveries of goodies in the neighborhood just as the next storm was rolling in – it was an adventure and a little surreal being out there on the empty snow covered streets.
SNOW DAY #3 – Monday, Feb 11
Snow was still in the forecast on Monday so Justin worked from home and school was cancelled for Abigail as well. I trekked it down to the YMCA on foot to get in a workout before they closed early for yet another storm rolling in Monday afternoon and throughout the night. You get the picture – snow, snow, snow.
Our driveway Monday morning
These are the sidewalks leading up to the Y – completely covered.
Carly went sledding with friends today.
Justin took several breaks to shovel the driveway and sidewalks. It just kept coming down.
SNOW DAY #4 – Tuesday, Feb 12
This morning our city put out a warning to all residents:
Needless to say all schools were cancelled and Justin again stayed home from work.
We figured we received approximately 43” of snow in just over a week. Insane! Our city was hit hard, especially over the last two days and they called upon other cities to help us dig our way out.
You’d never know there were steps down the backyard
All of this had been cleared the night before!
The snow was so deep on the streets that the snowplows couldn’t even get through. Justin and I walked down to MOD Pizza for lunch. It was a full on trek – a great workout. MOD was only open for a few hours before closing up.
The snow today was great for packing, building and snowballs!
There was a pretty intense snowball fight between Carly and Jason – they also had some increased “helpers” – “opposition” with Drew and his neighbor buddy, Cooper.
Do you see what’s about to happen here???
Yep, total whitewashing – yikes!
Paybacks…
SNOW DAY #5 – Wednesday, Feb 13
My annual Valentine’s fondue luncheon in Auburn was supposed to be today, but thankfully Camille decided to move it to Friday even though they were back in school today. I would have been so, so sad not to be able to make it.
By today the lack of schedule and late bedtimes was catching up to a few of my kiddos. He’s not asleep here. Likely just collapsed in protest to something.
I spent all morning making valentines cookies for Drew’s kindergarten Valentine’s party that was supposed to happen tomorrow. Surprise! It didn’t as school was cancelled once again. Justin was back at work today and Abigail had classes at Bellevue College but our city was still trying to unbury itself and our school properties hadn’t even been touched yet.
Carly and a couple friends spent the afternoon shoveling the driveway of her youth leader who has health issues. It was a lot of hard work and Sister Clay was so touched by their service.
I gave Katie a little haircut…
SNOW DAY #6 – Thursday, Feb 14 (Valentine’s Day)
When it was announced this morning that there wouldn’t be any school today I decided to make the most of all those heart shaped sugar cookies I’d made for Drew’s class and invite a bunch of neighborhood kids over to decorate them. We had seven kiddos end up coming over and they had a great time. A couple of the moms stayed and visited for about an hour or so. It turned out really great and it was a perfect opportunity to have people in our home under super casual circumstances.
When I was driving around town this afternoon I saw all sort of heavy equipment clearing the snow – it’s almost like the city hired all the construction workers that couldn’t work in these conditions and had them moving snow. Tractors were dumping snow into dump trucks and the city had a few different lots the dump trucks were moving the snow to. It was crazy to see.
When we saw this picture on facebook in the late afternoon we knew that there wouldn’t be any school tomorrow as well since our school was still inaccessible…
SNOW DAY #7 – Friday, Feb 15
I went down to Auburn today for the much anticipated Valentine’s fondue luncheon. It is always delicious and I love catching up with these ladies – many who I’ve known now for over 17 years.
We always bring a little gift to exchange with each other. This year I ended up ordering these cute little hedgehog dryer balls on Amazon and attaching a cleaver little tag to each of them. I didn’t get a picture of the finished gift, but you can imagine them put together all-cute-like.
The hedgehogs were a huge hit. In fact I got a text from one of the ladies recently (2 months later) with a picture of her little hedgehog and “Kaylie and I named him Samson J”
And my fun take-homes…
And after a full week (plus a few days the week before) of no school because of SNOW DAYS we had the next full week of school off for mid-winter break. Giving the district additional time to get our 12 school campuses ready to receive kids again.
We had a little more snow during mid-winter break but not enough to stop the world from turning and then again some in early March.
As of February 25 the kids had only attended THREE days of school that month. There were already two make-up days built into the school calendar for the year. To make up for the remaining days they added an additional 12 minutes to each school day and took away our early out Fridays. I’m so glad they didn’t add any additional days onto the end of the year like most other districts did.
And thus concludes SNOWMAGGEDEN 2019! I hope we never see another winter like it!
