Brrrrrrrr!!!!!!!!!

We are having a little arctic winter chill, and it's not even officially winter yet. They were predicting very cold temps. and snow for the weekend, and for once the weathermen got it right. It started snowing yesterday morning we discovered as Hannah ran into our bedroom gleefully yelling, "It's snowing." She and Justin got all bundled up to go outside, although it didn't last too long because along with this snowstorm came extremely cold temperatures and wind that made if feel even colder. They were out for maybe 20 minutes and then came in for hot chocolate. Justin actually got bundled up a second time and went out to play for awhile, but then he was done. Owen was all excited too and wanted to go outside, but when I tried to get his snow pants on, he threw one of his 2 year old tantrums, which have become fairly common. I said he couldn't go out if he didn't put on his snow pants. His response was, "I have an idea. Play toys." and he quickly ran into the toy room, content to just stay inside and play with his animals, cars, trucks and trains.

Most of the snow is gone now--just a little frozen on the grass, but the bitter cold is still here and will remain all week long. Today the high temp. is 27 deg., and with windchill it feels like 12 deg. The low tonight will be in the teens--hope our pipes are strong. It's supposed to be similar tomorrow and then warm up slightly on Wed. when an even larger snowstorm is supposed to come through. Perhaps the kids will actually get to miss school then. They were very irritated this morning when I woke them up to tell them school was not cancelled or late. Vancouver was the only town in the whole greater Portland metro/SW Washington area that had school today. I was surprised. It usually doesn't take much for our district to cancel school. I guess it's less that they'll have to make up in the summer, and it's almost Christmas break anyway.

I am finally recovering from a bad cold that I had all last week. It started a week ago Saturday, and I finally felt somewhat better by last Friday, but am still getting over it. It hindered my Christmas preparations. I had hoped to be done with all my Christmas shopping by now, but I still have a little more to do, although not too bad. We just adopted a family through the Salvation Army along with my sisters and my mom, so we still need to get some stuff for them. We will be helping out a single mom and her 7 year old daughter who live with the grandmother. This is something I've wanted to do for years now but just never got around to it. I just want to help others because we are so blessed beyond what we need. Especially in these trying financial times, there are so many who are in need, and we want to help bring a little joy to this family for Christmas.

I will leave you with pictures of the kids out in the snow and some pics of Zoolights at the Oregon Zoo. Thankfully, we went last week (although traffic and parking were a nightmare) because it would be way too cold to go now. The lights were great as usual, but the highlight was seeing the new baby elephant. He was born a few months ago, but we hadn't made it over to see him yet. He is very cute.

Cousins in front of some lights--Owen would not pose with them

Owen especially liked seeing the baby elephant