just trying out the new blogger.

Luke and Lindsay

This is actually Jake here. For those of you who are Conan fans, you'll appreciate this, for those of you who aren't, you might just be weirded out. Here's an "If They Mated". Theoretically speaking, this is what Luke and Lindsay's hypothetical first two kids will look like.

And out of fairness, this is what Me and AJ's first kid will look like.


Photo courtesy Lindsay.

Jake & AJ

I just realized that we haven't posted any pictures from Jake and AJ's wedding on the Folkman blog, so here is a picture of the happy couple at the Oakland Temple. Tom has a bunch more pictures in his camera of the wedding reception in Sonoma, and the open house in Redmond. We'll get some of them posted here in the next day or two.

Kevin & Katie

Snow? Snow?

Family,

I know I am not getting any sympathy from you Utah folks or Colorado exiles, but we missed 2 more days of school last week because of snow, and are potentially going to have another snowstorm overnight that might cancel school again.

Now before you start calling us weather wimps (even though we may deserve it), let me give you some information. First, the snow up here is wetter and heavier than in Utah. Part of that is because we are lower in elevation (close to sea level), and we get the moisture right off the Pacific, making the humidity higher. That's one of the big reasons I gave up skiing. Trying to night ski in the rain wearing a garbage bag (I'm not making this up) in snow that feels like wet cement, is no fun.

Second, since it snows so rarely, there are almost no snowplows or sanding trucks, and what few there are get focused primarily on the freeways. We have never seen a snowplow within two miles of our house here ever! So the snow falls, cars drive on it, packing it down and squeezing the extra moisture into hard snow they call compact snow, not quite ice, but easily polished by car tires, and slippery as snot. And it stays there until the gentle warm rains melt it away. We've had no gentle, warm rains since last weeks two snowstorms. Also, since most of the unplowed streets are shaded by tall evergreen trees (except for the thousands that blew down in the windstorm), the sun, if it does come out, doesn't hit most of the side streets, only the freeways that have already been plowed. So you can't count on a sunny day to clear the streets.

Finally, the only people up here who know how to drive in the snow are Kate and I, and I am not that sure about Kate. Kate has pointed out to me that when it snows, it's not a good idea to go out driving, especially since I am not as good a driver in the snow as I used to be. To which I point out that while she might be right, I am still better than all the other stupid drivers here. When it gets slippery, the only can think "If I just push on the gas pedal (or brake) harder, the extra force will make things better". So if you start to slip a little bit as you start to slide down a hill, the natural thing that most Washington drivers do is to stand on the brake, locking up all four tires, and losing all control while they bounce off cars until they hit the bottom of the hill. Same problem when you lose traction going up a hill, just switch to pushing on the gas pedal more. Did I mention there are a lot of hills here?

Not to mention that it has been unseasonably cold. Can you believe that it gets down to 20 degrees at night, and only 34 during the days? Can you imagine that?

Well, now you have some picture of what our life has been like here the last week or so. Kate and I did go for a walk in the middle of the snowstorm, though, on Wednesday night, and with the snow falling, the streetlights, and the crunch of snow, it reminded us of Utah. It was beautiful.

Finally, why the snow days at school. Take all of the things above, and then consider that all the schools are built on the tops of the hills, and you get why they close schools for snow days. The bad part is that now, with four snow days (and counting), one wind/power outage day, and we won't get out of school up here until the 27th of June in Kate's district, and the 1st of July in Carrie's district. We probably won't have to make up the wind day, as it became a federally declared emergency, but the snow days have to be made up. Who knew?

I'm sure that some of you will think this is trivial and try to top our stories, you whining wimps! Go ahead, we dare you!

Kevin

Power Back On

Troy and Maryanne,

It looks like fun there. Since we moved from Utah, I have a hard time imagining 32" of snow. I've seen snow like that when we've taken the scouts and young men camping on Mt. Rainier, but nothing like this where we live. If you've got power and heat, that would actually be fun, I think, for a day or two if you didn't have travel plans.

We finally got our power back yesterday morning, for a total of 6 1/2 days without. The generator our friends loaned us really was a huge blessing. It's funny, but since the power has come back on for most (but not all) of the area, Craigslist is filled with folks selling off the generators they just bought themselves. We plan on taking advantage of that, and purchasing our own. One more item of preparedness for next time. And there will be a next time, I am sure.

Jake is back from Hawaii, and we are all getting prepped for the wedding next week. Hope to see some of you either in Oakland/Napa next week, or in Redmond on the 6th for the open house.

Have a merry Christmas, and we'll make some phone calls Christmas day.

Kevin & Kate

Holiday Blizzard

Glad to hear that the NW Folkmans are all okay! We hope you have power again and are all warm and cozy. What a good lesson about needing cash for emergencies. I think we've got about $15 and a jar of change. Luckily we haven't lost power with all this snow, but your predicament has made us realize we need to be better prepared for all situations. I'm glad I went grocery shopping Tuesday night, because it looks like we won't be digging out until Friday afternoon.

The snow in Denver started falling Wednesday morning and hasn't stopped. Troy had to go into the office for a few hours and since my minivan has new snow tires, he drove that and left his little sedan. It was a good thing he did because he almost didn't make it home. The interstate was snowpacked and there were more abandoned cars than there were driving. Almost every exit was blocked from cars that were stuck in the snow. When he got onto local streets, there were cars stuck everywhere. There was even a city bus that had slid sideways, completely blocking all lanes of traffic. A little further down the road there was another bus stuck. Somehow Troy made it all the way to our driveway, and that's where he got stuck. At least he was home!

The kids and our huskie are loving all the snow. At first, Meka didn't know what to do when she needed to outside. She looked at the 2 ft snowdrift and then at me like, move the snow for me Mom! Finally, I had to pick her up and toss her out into the snow. Then she was happy and ran around like the snow dog she is.

This morning we woke up to about 32 inches total. We have snow drifts in our backyard that are 6ft high, the snow is packed up against our sliding glass door on the deck, and Troy's car is almost completely buried. I think we got another 4 or 5 inches this afternoon. My parents, Ian, Adam & his family, are all supposed to drive out here Friday to spend Christmas with us. No word yet whether the snow will postpone their trip.

Here's a video I made of our blizzard photos. I hope it works!
Love, MaryAnne & Family

Make an online slide show at onetruemedia.com

Powerless in Seattle

Just to let you folks know, we are still without power at our house, and at my work. We're part of the unfortunate final 200,000 without power. All around us, power is coming back on, but we may be another day or two, due to downed trees.

We got by without any damage from trees or wind, but it got cold in a hurry. With both fireplaces going, we were keeping it about 50 degrees in the house, which was okay for two days, but was no longer fun. Fortunately, one of our friends in the ward got power back Saturday night, so they brought us their generator, and we were able to get the furnace, refrigerator, and a few lights up. We have been cooking on our gas grill outside, which has a side burner, but we also baked a cake, and roasted a turkey yesterday. That has been nice.

Some of the problems we ran into included with the power outages, most of the few stores that were open, could not process debits or credit card transactions, so we had to get some cash. In the future, we are going to keep a little on hand. Gas was also in short supply, as with out power, the stations couldn't pump gas. There were two hour waits on Friday, and almost that long on Saturday. Church meetings for our entire stake were cancelled yesterday to save on gas, and keep people off the roads, as there are still many trees down. I had to detour drastically to get to work today, where we are running some computers off of a generator, but no heat, and no lights. It is probably 35 degrees in here as I type this.

We bought some hand crank radios and shaker flashlights (ie, no batteries to run down), and those have also been lifesavers. We went through half our firewood supply in the first 48 hours. Until we got the generator, we were probably 24 hours from having to seek shelter somewhere else.

But, we are all okay, no damage, just about three days behind on our final Christmas shopping, so we hope to get caught up today. Take care,

Kevin & Katie & family
- Pardon the spelling if I missed anything, my fingers are almost numb while I type this at work.

Late Night Update

For all of you Utah Jazz fans, I just wanted to let you know that I am still a believer, and was anxious to see Sloan get his 1000th win, especially in the way that they did over Dallas last night. This team, with Boozer and Williams, may be almost as good as the Malone-Stockton years when they went to the NBA finals. It's been refreshing to see them play well the start of this season, and to win over good teams like Detroit, Dallas and Phoenix. Too bad they aren't in the Eastern Conference in the same division with the Knicks and the 76ers, or they might be 18 and 3 or something like that at this point. Wish I could say the same about the Sonics, but they just aren't up to that level yet.

We are just finalizing all of the details for Jake and AJ's wedding on the 30th in Oakland, and the open house up here on the 6th. Carrie is supposed to hear about her National Board Certification early in the morning. I hope that all her hard work is rewarded. She also interviewed with Bellevue Community College about teaching some evening Spanish classes there. She thinks that might be fun.

Well, it's late here, so I am going to check out, but just thought I would say hi, as I haven't posted for a few days.

Kevin

Yoda

I love the lamp! Pete and Becca gave us a 1/2 size version last year for Christmas, but WOW! Your house must be the coolest on the block. Speaking of that movie, did you all hear that someone bought the house that was used in A Christmas Story, for all the outside shots and then remodeled the inside to look like the movie. You can now go on tours! :) Fun!

Here's a picture of Emma on Halloween. You can tell her parents are quite nerdy, but we thought it was one of the only years that we would be able to dress her like we want to.

I love all the pictures! Keep 'em coming! :)

Love, Carrie

It's A Major Award!

Frageelay!