hooray snow!

so it's been awhile, too long in fact. i was in california last week and got quite a bit of grief for not keeping up with the going-ons (cough, cough, dave hale, cough).

things in tacoma have been pretty intense as of late. due to the economic hardship, we at nativity house are finding that we are serving far more guests than we are really able to. in addition, we are also suffering from the bad economy, there has been a serious lack of donations and funding, so much so that we have had to cut back on services and staff. it's really pretty bad, so bad the guests can sense the stress and lack of control.

on a different note, the weather has been outrageous. it has snowed at least a foot over the last week (you must understand that this is quite the anomolie). it's been interesting to see how the town shuts down here with what most places would consider a small amount of snow. however, no one here is prepared for this kind of weather. all but the major streets have been baracaded off, shops and business have been closed and folks are being encouraged to stay home unless absolutly necessary. lucky for me, this just means that it's much more important for me to go to work. in all honesty, i have been quite annoyed by all this snow, it has only made daily life more complicated, until yesterday. i was waiting for my friend to get off of work, so i could go over (it's been much to cold to stay in my house). whilst i was awaiting her phone call, my roommate arrived home. i hadn't seen oliver in a several days so i went to the kitchen to chat. he informed me that he had been sledding everynight until the wee hours of the morning and was planning on the same this evening. so he and i went outside and played in the snow at 10pm. it was really quite fantastic. it was snowing and the clouds were so low

all the city lights were reflecting the light making it really bright

outside inspite of the late hour. next thing i know oliver decides to snowboard down our street, so he straps on his board and heads to it. it was really quite amusing.

this is oliver

snowboarding

my very first snow angel (at least that i can remember)

this is my house, so endearing,

like a snow chalet.