Hi, everyone!
The big adventure in the past week was the snowstorm predicted for last Saturday and Sunday! The weather forecasters on TV had been tracking the storm for a week all the way from the west coast. They warned that we could get lots of snow and very cold temperatures, starting on Saturday afternoon. Grandpa decided we’d better go out to the bay and drain the water out of the pipes for the winter before the storm got here, so we went out last Friday, just for the day. The bay was almost completely frozen over, and there were people out ice fishing!
I wanted to go out on the ice, but Grandma said she didn’t trust the slushy spots on our side of the bay for walking. I helped her work on her jigsaw puzzle instead. It’s a picture of a temple we visited in Kyoto, and it’s almost done except for the sky! We got some more of the sky pieces put in, but the rest will have to wait until spring! Grandpa drained the pipes while we worked on the puzzle. First, he had to turn off the water outside at the two curb valves. The last pipes that needed to be drained inside have a valve behind the refrigerator. Grandma and I helped Grandpa move the refrigerator away from the wall so he could get at those. Now the pipes will be safe even if the heat goes off!
When I got up on Saturday morning, the storm hadn’t started yet. Most of the snow was expected to fall overnight on Saturday, and a lot of Sunday activities were canceled in advance. Grandma got a message Saturday night that there wasn’t going to be church on Sunday. When we got up on Sunday morning, we were glad we didn’t have to go anywhere! We had over a foot of new snow and the temperature was 10 degrees F.!
It was a good thing that Monday was a holiday, because after the major storm passed we had even more snow! We had lake effect snow overnight on Sunday and it was even colder on Monday than Sunday! On Tuesday it got a little warmer, so Grandma could get the driveway completely cleaned off.
Then, on Wednesday, the temperature got up to 40 degrees F. and we had rain! That made a lot of the snow melt! Grandma was glad to have a warmer day to take the first batch of Ground Hog Day cookie boxes to the post office to mail. I helped her complete the customs forms (these are the boxes headed overseas) by adding the weight of the box to each form. On Thursday, the rain changed back over to snow again!
Grandma has been trying recipes for the travel dinner in March! Uncle Steven’s family came for dinner last night, so we made a sticky toffee pudding for dessert. That’s a dish from Uncle Steven and Aunt Kara’s favorite restaurant in the Netherlands. I helped Grandma glaze the pudding with toffee sauce after it was baked. Grandma thinks she needs to tweak the recipe for the toffee sauce just a bit more, but everybody agreed she had the pudding just about right. After dinner, Thomas and I played Wii Super Mario before he had to go home to bed.
This morning we had another snow squall. Grandpa looked at the radar and said it was lake effect coming all the way from Lake Erie! Then the sun came out. Ground Hog Day is coming soon, so I practiced watching for my shadow!
Love,
Lion-san
Yes we had a lot of snow! Iggy got his snow bath and is a lot whiter for it. Thank you for the information. He has to go out for another one but we might wait a year. As long as I can remember what the temperature needs to be. The toffee pudding looked really good. Grandma always makes good desserts.