home

earlier today, mikey sent me these pictures of home. apparently, a winter storm hit portland and dumped 6 inches of snow on the city. i haven't seen snow like that in awhile. and seeing the pictures made me miss home more than i have in a long time. mikey got a snow day and didn't have to work. this is a picture from his room window, looking at our neighbor's house. it is so much snow! i've been complaining about the cold temps here and i realized that i've indeed become wimpy and grown accustomed to warmer weather.


this is the backyard covered in snow. if this had happened while we were all still living at home, i'd have dragged mike and andy out to play. i'm pretty sure we still have our old sleds in storage somewhere in the garage. and secretly, i've always wanted the pool to freeze over so we could slide around on it like an ice rink. picture it - it would be so much fun!


mike sent me this last one he took from his window. the school bus is directly in front of my parents' house and apparently, it started sliding backwards down the hill and slid right into the truck! mike said the truck eventually pushed the bus up onto flatter ground. i'm not sure what that bus driver was thinking with 6 inches of snow. most cars can't make it up that hill when there's just a light layer of snow on the ground, let alone 6 inches. and i found out my crazy father decided to go to the bank - he made it there and back just fine, but still...

when i was in high school, maybe college, it started snowing as my dad and i were driving back home. when we got to our neighborhood, the snow was just starting to make a visible layer on the ground. my dad, in his troublemaking humor, decided to swerve all the way up the hill, leaving tire marks everywhere, making it look like the hill was extremely slippery and treacherous when it really wasn't that bad. a couple of hours later, we all went out to eat and we saw 4 or 5 cars parked at the bottom of the hill, where my dad's tire tracks started. he had a good laugh. it was pretty funny.

and speaking of funny, here's a link to a video that both mike and kristie sent me about the craziness: bumper cars


there is a group of oregonians that have moved here in the last few years. every now and then, we try to get together for dinner and catch up. it's been awhile since we hung out - i think the last time was at the end of september. since ruth was in town for work and dan is getting ready to move back to portland, we had bbq in cerritos and hung out at guppy teahouse to catch up afterwards. the picture is missing john and hannah, plus jane and friend. they left before i remembered that i had my camera. usually, getting together with oregon friends and catching up doesn't make me homesick, but today it did. it's probably because i just spent a few weeks up there, but i haven't missed portland/seattle like this in awhile. i tend to miss home when i get confused or feel sort of lost.

i'm still on vacation, so i suppose i'll have lots of time to ponder my sudden longing for home.