Portland Weather

Everyone talks about how much it rains in Portland, but in January we had very decent weather. Despite the occasional cloud cover, most days were 50+ degrees.  That made it possible to visit the local parks and go on family walks. Although I missed the snow sometimes, I really couldn't complain.

We live by some really great parks. This is the volcano slide park. It's a favorite.

In pursuit of a "doggie"

We found a fantastic park in Sherwood, a neighboring town. It is a Tonka truck graveyard and has dozens of trucks and sand toys in a big pit.

I don't know who enjoyed it more, Ben or Nayeli

And then came the snow...

One Thursday afternoon while Ben was on his skiing trip, I drove into downtown Portland to have lunch with a friend. While I was there, it started to snow and I realized I should probably head home as soon as possible. I should mention that Portlandians are great at driving in the rain, but not so great at driving in the snow. Even though it wasn't even sticking to the roads yet, the traffic was so bad that a drive that usually takes me 20 minutes took me an hour and a half.

By the time I got home, it was coming down fairly rapidly and sticking. On Friday morning, we woke up to snow like this:

 Nayeli was sooooo excited. She just wanted to get outside and play in it.

She kept saying,  "Stairs, climb mama".

According to locals, Portland hadn't seen this much snow in about five years.

Later that day I made her a fort and let her eat snow while watching a show. That's sometimes what happens when dad is out of town.

Because it kept snowing, almost all the flights at the airport were canceled. Luckily, Ben's flight from Colorado was not. He got home at 1am on Friday night.

 Saturday there was even more snow to enjoy! We went over to our friend's house to play in it and sled. Doesn't Nayeli look just like the kid from the Christmas story in this picture?

 We even took time to build a snowman, although Ben and our friend Dan decided to make it into a George Washington-man. Nayeli badly needed a nap at this point, as evidenced by her face.

The most unbelievable part is that by Tuesday, all, and I mean ALL, the snow had melted. Sunday morning everything was a sheet of ice but by Monday the warm rain came and melted all the snow. Coming from Utah where the snow doesn't melt until March or April, it was the craziest thing to see. So even though it was fleeting, we loved our little Portland snowstorm.