Snowcrete

This winter brought one of our more unusual snowstorms in DC – the Snowcrete. Temperatures were well below freezing when the storm started with about 5" of snow falling and sticking immediately to the ground. Then a warm layer of air aloft moved in with surface temperatures still in the low 20s and we got another 5" of sleet that was topped off with some freezing rain. This left us with a thick layer of 'snowcrete' that was brutal to remove. I got an early start clearing the sidewalk out front in the snow phase of the storm but my snow shovel broke, so needed to share our neighbors Matt & Larry's shovel. We kept a narrow path clear, but the battle was lost in back. 

I also had to make the call to cancel our FMW/DCM dialogue on Sunday the 25th, and decide what to do about my flight to Richland on Monday for our first merged directorate leadership team workshop. My flight was out of BWI departing at 7am (hoping to avoid past problems in MSP) and I was able to move it to an afternoon flight out of BWI instead to buy a little time and hopefully take the MARC train to the airport instead of trying the roads. When the MARC train suspended service I cancelled my trip even though my flight was still on. Turns out that was the right call since the flight ended up being delayed 4 hours and my connecting flight was later cancelled. We had to postpone the Tuesday, January 27th dialogue as well since the roads and sidewalks were still impassible. 

Despite school being cancelled for the first half of the week, Noa was still able to go to the NAIS Civic Leadership Summit Tuesday through Friday. Elaine and Noa took an uber to the hotel in Arlington since our car was still trapped. It was a good experience for Noa, though seeing the monuments at night in the bitter cold with all of the snowcrete probably was more exciting for all the kids who came to DC from around the country for the conference.

The aftermath of the storm was brutal as we entered into a ten day streak of high temperatures below freezing and brutally cold lows for DC, the longest such streak since 1989 and the sixth longest since records started in the 1800s. Our car was trapped by the impassible alley until one of the apartment buildings hired a private plow to clear the alley to 11th St. That meant I could get out a hammer and slowly chip away at the snowcrete outside our garage door to clear a path for us to escape. Just in time for us to pick up Noa from the leadership conference on Friday and make and deliver soup for Grate Patrol. Eventually the city sent a skid-loader to begin to clear out the alley to 10th St, but the remnants of this storm would last a long time.

Fake Christmases

While I generally don't like to argue that there is one true anything (especially these days), during the holidays we do tend to have official celebrations which correspond with the designated Christmas holiday, and supplemental celebrations which tend to occur on whatever odd day works with everybody's schedule. We colloquially refer to the latter as "Fake Christmas(es)."

The timing of these celebrations was all over the place this year. For instance, Jennifer, Ahzer and the kids flew into Maryland prior to celebrating the holidays along the Eastern Shore (I think they officially ended up in Connecticut though there might have been a detour to New York as well) which meant we were able to get together with them the evening Owen got back from St. Mary's for a lovely dinner and a lot of noise. We met up the Pearsons, who were in Virginia to celebrate with Chris's parents before Elise had to go back to Pittsburgh for work, for dinner and game play right before we headed off to Iowa. We saved opening our immediate family presents and stockings until we got back from visiting Grandma and Grandpa Z in Iowa on the 26th.And then Owen invited his high school crew over for New Years.

But the biggest, fakest Christmas was held January 10th when we were finally able to get together with Mom Mom, Grandpa Don, and Nancy & Danny for the non-so-Secret Santa exchange (limited persons and non getting anyone in your household makes it pretty easy to figure things out). The exchange was originally going to happen around New Years, but given the kids social calendars and Danny still being radioactive at the time from a treatment, we decided delaying another week made sense.

The extra time allowed people to really step it up. Danny got Owen three Nationals World Series Baseballs (signed by Zimmerman, Rendon, and Corbin respectively). Owen, harkening back to Christmases of yore, had personalized "Stinky Dog" hot sauce made for Don, with a picture of Pumbaa in a Cubs hat as well as a matching t-shirt. Nancy, having been interviewed by Noa for their Women's History class which resulted in a podcast that culminated in the story of Caroline Harrison releasing ferrets in the White House to combat a rat infestation, gifted Noa a "symbolic adoption for a black-footed ferret" from the World Wildlife Fund, as well as some more cuddly mementos.

But the winner of Fake Christmas was Noa (or rather Mom Mom who was the recipient of Noa's generosity), who painted a portrait of our family enjoying the beach this past summer, and finished up just in time for us to get it framed. Mom Mom was thrilled and it's now proudly on display in the her living room. 

(To see pictures from all of our fake celebrations, click here.)