Waiting for our ship to come in.

Like everyone else faced with traveling through the "Storm of the Century" that's marauded the United States, Charlie and I are hanging out in an airport right now, waiting for our flight to come in. Fortunately for us, we've only been here for about an hour--we live ten minutes from the Boise airport, and so were able to easily manage the delays without camping out.

I'm pretty amazed to hear of all the madness that's happening to you all out in Seattle and Portland. As most of you know, I'm a HUGE fan of crazy weather--it breaks my heart a little not to be there for it all! We've gotten a little weather out in Boise, too, but it's not quite the same around here.

For example: it snowed in Boise on Sunday night, and not ONLY was I expected to get to work on Monday, but I was expected to BE THERE ON TIME, too! And we had like, THREE INCHES OF SNOW! The humanity. It's just not quite the same when things keep functioning despite the weather.

That said, everyone wishes that things like airports and trains functioned throughout storms. Charlie and I are trying to fly in to the SeaTac airport for the first leg of our triple-state-Christmas-extravaganza--the same airport where 3,000 people have been sleeping the past few nights because they couldn't get flights out. From the news stories I've been able to put together, they've run out of food, blankets, and flights. Remind me again why Charlie and I are trying to GET to this place that thousands of people are desperately trying to LEAVE? It's a little mad.

Here we are:

Snowtown, USA.

Well, it seems that way to Charlie and I, at least.

By now you've probably seen Charlie's last post about our Christmas tree. It was lots of fun to go pick it out together.

Currently we're enjoying (?) our first winter storm in Boise. It's been going on for about a week now. Everything is snowy and a little wild, but the city seems to do a good job managing the weather. Far better than Seattle and Portland who are in the throes of hysteria right now with their monster winter storms.

It's been warmer that they were originally predicting--only into the 10's and MAYBE a single digit. Still, it's been hard for a little kitty to adjust to. He spends his time rotating between a few warm places in our house. I almost feel like I should draw a Family-Circle style chart to illustrate it. He insists on sleeping on the bed at night. Then once the humans are done showering for the day, he sits in the warm shower (IN THE WET SHOWER!) for 20 minutes or so. Then he moves to the chair by the heater. He alternates between that, and between sitting in front of the other space heater all day.

And sometimes he burrows into any pile of fabric he can find.


Today when I got out of the shower, I sat down on the bed, and heard a quiet little "mrow" from under a pile of blankets and clothing. I peeled back a few layers, and found the cat curled up, INSIDE my skirt. Okie dokie.

Despite Otto's wimpiness, we still made it outside for a walk today. I'll share a few shots of Boise in the winter and snow to give you an idea of what we're looking at. We're supposed to get another 3 or 4 inches tonight. This is on a walk up to Camel's Back. There were tons of people sledding and playing in the snow.

Christmastime is here...

Ariel and I bought our first Christmas tree together for our apartment last weekend. We picked up a four footer from a little Christmas tree lot off of Broadway here in Boise. Since it was so small, we had no trouble at all fitting it in our Toyota Yaris.



Shortly after getting it home, we pulled out our ornaments and got to work on decorating it.









We also pulled out some other Christmas doodads and decorated the house - it's starting to feel festive around here!



We'll be heading out of town soon to celebrate Christmas with family, first in Washington, then in Illinois. But for now, we're enjoying the holiday season for the very first time in Boise.