A Hardy Christmas

With all the Christmas excitement of opening presents, playing with new toys, and watching the snow, a boy needs a Christmas morning nap.

Christmas is finally here!

With Colby in a new apron and Kris in a new Carhartt vest Christmas has made it (barely) to Seattle as the "December Storm 2008" rages on.

Metro Bus + Ice + Hill = Bad Idea

It's the hills in Seattle that cause so many problems. Cars and even buses with chains are unable to navigate the ups and downs of this city. When we woke up to a beautiful snowy scene on Thursday morning (12/18) it looked like a Michigan day. There was a nice 3-4" layer of fluffy dry snow covering our neighborhood. Even after watching the morning news that was saying it was utter devastation on the roads I determine it can't be that bad and set off for the bus stop.

As my bus pulls up and I step on board I have a moment where I think "can this petite young gal who is driving this bus manage the snowy conditions"? As I come to find out the answer is...Hell Yes.

We easily make it on a flat road for about 1/4 mile and then turn down another fairly main road that takes us east towards the freeway. As we near the top of the hill we can see what lies ahead of us. A bus graveyard. Approximately 6 articulated buses have not made it up/down the hill and are jack-knifed in the street. My bus driver announces that she has been driving buses for over 10 years and has only ever been stuck once. She drives around all the disabled buses continuing to make the regular stops dropping people off and picking people up.

We make it further down the road until we come to a steep hill (just like the photo above) and she announces she's going "off route". We take a turn and wind our way through some narrow neighborhood streets in the Green Lake area. We stop to pick up a few more stranded people. Now we are close to a freeway entrance where we pick up about 25 more people who have been waiting for hours for a variety of buses that were all behind us, jack-knifed on the hills. As we crawl down I-5 going about 15 miles per hour all of us on the bus are excited and thrilled to be on this bus and share our stories. This amazing bus driver gets us into the downtown area and tells us to ring the bell whenever we want off. She doesn't know where the regular stops are because we are "off route". It was brilliant, exciting and kind of scary. Metro bus driver gal driving the #355 at 8am on Dec. 18th, 2008...you are my hero!

There are two numbers on the digital readout above. One of them is the temperature in Seattle. It is not the number on the right.

Its beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

Brrrrrr. The first snow of the 2008 holiday season has fallen on Seattle. A nice little accumulation of about 3 inches at our house. So far our only Christmas decorations are lights on an evergreen tree in the front yard. We were lucky to get them up Saturday afternoon before it started snowing Saturday night, so it turned out perfectly. Only downside is now the roads in our neighborhood are icy and will probably stay that way for the rest of the week since the high temps this week are only supposed to be in the low 30s with teens and 20s at night. But it definitely gets us into a quasi-spirited mind-frame for the holidays.

Back in the saddle again

Whoa, it has been awhile. Apparently updating the Phillips on Phinney blog has fallen by the wayside this fall with all of the usual end-of-year busy-ness with school and work. But we take this time to reflect on Thanksgiving, when Scott and Mindy came out for a long weekend of booze, burgers, and bros. And of course a non-traditional Thanksgiving Day Italian pot roast meal by Kris. With the quarter winding down and things slowing down at work, we should be able to reconnect with the blogosphere more often, and this post is the first step. Look for more soon.