What a Day!

It went from boring to an adventure. We were supposed to meet up with some old playgroup friends, but one of the moms forgot about it, another was sick and some just didn't reply. So we decided to take care of a few more errands.

We thought we could donate some more items before year-end, but when Mama called one of the children's organizations we'd given to before, they said they weren't accepting anything. They had received too many donations in December. She said she'd talked to her peers and they were all in the same boat. Too many donations this month. Hmmm. Haven't heard of that before.

So, Mama decided we would try to take care of a somewhat complicated exchange and she made some calls and then we headed out. We tried a store close to our house first, but after waiting in line we learned we couldn't complete the transaction without a receipt as the item wasn't in their system. So we headed out to another store near the airport. Same thing there. So as we sat in the car making a few more calls, we saw a few snowflakes fall. No biggie, we'd seen flakes earlier in the week when we hiked east of the city and once we headed home they were gone. After a long call, Mama found a store that said they would allow our exchange, but it was way in SW Portland and we were way in NE Portland. We figured it was early enough in the day that we could run out there and still make it home before rush hour so we headed out.

As we drove across town, the snow came down thicker and thicker. The roads seemed great, but people were driving really slow. We continued on thinking that it would turn to rain at any point, since that was the forecast. It didn't happen, but the snow was sure pretty on the trees as we drove. We ran into the mall and finished our business as quick as possible. When we got back out to our car, another inch or two of snow had fallen. This is Portland, remember, so this is huge. We figured it would take a while to get home, but thought we'd just go slow.

As we tried to leave the parking lot, the car in front of us (a Mercedes) started to back up. We didn't understand why until we went around it - the back wheels were spinning. After a bit of a wait, we finally made it onto the freeway. It was bad. It took us an hour and 45 minutes to go 3.8 miles. Cars were spinning out in the lane next to us and we saw a BMW stuck off on the side of the road with its rear wheels spinning. Mama took it slow and put the car in low gear. Thank goodness for all-wheel drive as we didn't notice any slipping. We passed a hilly exit ramp and watched 3 cars back down it to get back on the freeway. We gave Daddy a call as we waited to get onto Highway 26 to head home (luckily Eastbound as Westbound was closed by this point) and then we formulated our alternate plan. We were fortunate to be very close to the Sunset Transit Center so we parked Mama's car there and boarded the Max train back into town. Daddy actually ended up on the same train as us on his way home from work so we all walked home in the snow together.

CJ was a trooper. She never complained about being stuck in the snow or waiting in the cold for the train or the long walk home. We were only sad that we missed some fun playing in the snow at home. We finally got there and this is what it looked like:

The last excitement of the day was letting the dogs out way past the time they usually go out and eat. Big B was so excited at the snow (he loves to eat it), that he ran over to the garage roof and slipped and now he is limping. Let's hope he is ok.

To top it all off, we got this weird package of baklava. It was addressed to the K Family at a street address that doesn't exist on our block. Somehow UPS couldn't deliver it, but they were able to mail a postcard and that came to us so Mama had called about it and said it likely wasn't for us, but we'd check it out. Today it came and had a card from someone we didn't know so Mama called the original company to tell them and they didn't even want to know about it or look up the order. They said the person who bought it had probably already called about it so we could do whatever we wanted to do with it. Ah, the great customer service.