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So, What's Been Going On?

My last post was way back in December. So this is kind of an end of last year recap and new year post.

Winter
In our area it started off like it would quite a "Doozie" of a Winter. Normally the real snow doesn't fall until right around or after Christmas, not this year! We got substantial snowfall well before the Holiday.
Many locals were comparing the amount to the "Winter of 1996" which was the last of the 'snow drifts and blizzards' Winters that many remember that lived here at the time. In our area the major Winter Resort is a place called Schweitzer Mountain about 35 miles South, with primarily skiing, snowboarding and such Winter activities.
Measurements taken in mid December had the snow pack of 168 inches (14 feet!) which was said to be 120% of 'normal' for that time of the year.

Well, it stayed like that, wintry and snowy, until about second week of January then it didn't snow for weeks. Then any snow was light accumulations of an inch or less. Even got a couple of days of rain out of it with warm air coming up from the California coast instead of cold air from Alaska. It overall stayed cold though, 30s daytime, low 20s at night, just not too much more snow.
And as of today and until today, it had actually begun to be more like the Spring it is fast becoming. Most of the snow was evaporated or melted away except in the shaded areas and the roads were all clear. We were even planning our garden last weekend. Then yesterday (2/19), it starts snowing again! It lightly snowed all day but didn't stick, then last night we got about 3 inches. So it's all snowy again, and with a big storm and the potential of a lot of snow this weekend.
That's similar to last winter actually. The snow had all but cleared up then in late March we got just under a foot of new snow that lasted with cold weather all the way to June.  The one thing we didn't get this year? The week of at or below zero temperatures. The coldest it got all Winter was a night in early January about 9 degrees. Cold yes, but not the coldest since we've been here of -14 a few winters ago.

Traveling
Stacy and I went to California in mid December and spent a week in San Jose with Sandy and new grand baby Justine (born on September 6th), who I had not met until then. Most of the week it was rainy and cold for those locals, warm for us!
Every visit to California reinforces how much we don't miss living there! Too expensive and too crowded. I did get some good photos and we had a really nice time visiting with Sandy who at that time was still off on her maternity leave.
And now with the new year and the Holidays over, Stacy is back to her traveling. The cost of being the boss that many are jockeying to get her into their programs or committees, Stacy has already been to Boise several times, twice for a week long as she also teaches a class at the Idaho Police Officer Standards and Training (P.O.S.T.) Academy, and she has another week to do in Boise in March, with more to come. Last Fall Stacy was appointed to the Idaho Governor's panel on Juvenile Justice.
And then this is her year as the 'President' of the Idaho Juvenile Justice Association and so that in the 'spare time' of everything else she has going on, she is getting everything going for the annual IJJA Conference this year in August instead of September due to scheduling conflicts with the venue of the conference in Boise. And she's still got a small department to run on top of it all!

The Kids
As I said above, Sandy is doing fine. She's been back at work since just after we left and as long as her job holds out, she's said there are strong talks of job consolidation in her company which will make her job 'redundant'.  Her husbands job, although also paying very well, has no real longevity in it either. The week we were there two of his fellow and same section, employees were let go. Right before Christmas. Such is the life of a programmer! At least both he and Sandy have bankable employment and should have no problem getting new employment if it came to that. Last year Sandy even got her California State Architectural License after passing all the myriad tests the state has a person do.
Laura and her family are doing very well and really like the move to Houston from Davenport they made last year. Laura got a job at the Pasadena Texas, City Animal Control and is soon to go from dispatcher to field officer, a move she really is looking forward too. Grandson Tyler has really done well, better than he was doing in Iowa, and he really likes school there. For his birthday he got to take a tour of the Houston Space Center, which is where Russell his dad works, and he got to even meet an astronaut.
And Sean still LOVES living in Hawaii. He loves the climate, the bikinis, the area, oh yes, and those bikinis! He is busy taking evening classes to get all the certification he needs to continue on his aviation career path that he enjoys so much. His current job contract is set to expire in November 2014, he really likes the company he works for, and if for some reason he can't stay in with another project in Hawaii, he's working on his options now instead of waiting till the last minute! His wife Brandy is working with a person in their apartment complex that sells products and she my get into that, we'll all have to wait and see.

Everything else
All in all everything is doing fine. Stacy and I both have gotten a little "Cabin Fevery" this winter with all the inside days due to the cold weather. Even with Stacy's sewing projects she was feeling it this year. And we're looking forward to our Spring projects.
We have decided to get our storage building cleaned out this year. Last march I had gone to Eureka, California, and had brought back quite a lot of stuff from my mothers storage unit when I had to go clean it out after my brother had decided to stop paying for it without telling anyone. And I got the call the day it was to be auctioned off asking if I wanted anything!
When Stacy and I were there in 2008 consolidating her 3 storage units into 1 unit when my mom died, I had left many things I had wanted because I didn't want to argue or fight with my brother and sister that live in that area, so it was left with the idea that stuff would be sold or given away. They never did anything with it and then to find out it was all going to be tossed!, so I filled up our storage at home again.

Last summer we had taken out some trees to facilitate a good strong signal for our then new Wi-Max Internet and knew we had made a great place to have a good sized garden on our own property starting this year. All at home so no having to go to the community garden anymore except for the piece that the department gets for the probationers to take care of. It will be very nice!

Well, more later!

Tad



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