Pomerleau Family Blog: The first few weeks in January: Back to a normal schedule and then the epic record snow storm hits...

Normally I cringe when I hear the word January…it’s my least favorite month of the year. I am normally saddened that the holidays and the family time is over along with the bustle and the excitement of Christmas and then it does not help that the weather is normally so dreary in January: so much rain, dark days, and little sunshine. It was nice to get back to our normal routine after the business of the holidays and the weeks leading up to the holidays. The first week back at school Brandon found out that he got to take “Penny” the classroom’s stuffed Pussy cat home with him for the week. He had the assignment to take various photos of Penny with him and the family for the week and then to scrapbook the photos. Penny got to have a blast watching Brandon play the piano, eating dinner with the family, sleeping with Brandon, going with me to work, meeting Brandon’s grandmother CiCi, going to Brandon’s soccer practice, and then going to the classroom’s gingerbread house party. Brandon’s class had a make-up gingerbread party the Friday after they came back from winter vacation as their original gingerbread party before Christmas had to be canceled as school was canceled. Brandon was so happy that both Sean and I could make it to the party and enjoyed building his gingerbread house even though it was a bit after the holidays.

Playing the piano with Penny

Dinner time Penny!

Meeting Brandon's other stuffed animals

At the gingerbread house party with Penny

Meeting CiCi

Gingerbread house party fun

Family shot at the gingerbread party

Brandon having fun at the gingerbread house party

Penny watching Brandon play soccer

Olivia went back to gymnastics on Saturdays and got to do a few make up dance classes which she enjoyed. Brandon started Westside Timbers soccer club, the week he went back to school. Westside Timbers is a Developmental league for Brandon’s age group and offers just a bit more structure and some more playing opportunity for kids that like playing soccer. Brandon is amongst the youngest in the league (there are 6 and 7 year olds that practice with him and he just turned 6). His good friend from preschool Andrew is doing the league and introduced him to it and he so far is having a blast. He has an outdoor soccer practice on Tuesday and indoor soccer practice on Fridays. Brandon also started the MVP basketball league that have games on Sundays and practice right before the games. His good buddy Andrew also is on his basketball team.

Make up dance class with Addie

Indoor soccer practice on Fridays

Brandon and his bud Andrew

The first weekend in January, a really had ice storm hit the Portland area. I was able to get Olivia to gymnastics and we were able to go grocery shopping before the storm hit, but we were stuck in the house for the entire weekend. It started off as some snow and then turned to freezing rain in the late afternoon and overnight into Sunday. There ended up being about a ½” of ice on the ground over the snow which made for it being very slippery. We passed the weekend by making a yummy French onion soup (well Sean did), lining up Olivia’s My Little Ponies and matching to her My Little Pony cards, and building indoor forts. Brandon ended up not having school that Monday because it was too icy first thing in the morning although it melted and was fine by about 10:00 AM. Brooke was super nice and let me drop Brandon off at her house for a few hours so I could go on a claim near her house. I was worried about the bigger storm they were forecasting to come Tuesday night and was trying to get as many claims handled as I could.

Ice storm

Snow from the first storm in January

Pony fun!

I got in several claims on Tuesday because I could see a really big snowstorm was coming in that night and I was not sure when I would be able to get out to inspect anything any time soon. My mom was awesome and came up early on Tuesday evening ahead of the snowstorm to help out in case there was no school. Brandon went to his first soccer practice outdoors in frigidly cold and snowy weather (it had just begun to do flurries) and practiced for about half an hour before they called it. My mom got to our house safely and it was snowing lightly then. About an hour later after she got to our house we already had 2” of snow. It kept on snowing and I kept going outside to check on it. I had never really seen anything like this in the Portland Metro area. At one point in an hour it snowed 3”! By the time I went to bed at around 11:30 PM it had already snowed about 5.5” and it was still snowing.

Snow fall it was just coming down

Beautiful view of the snow coming down in the tree in front of our house

View of the snow coming down hard

Tape measure just before bed

Our backyard just before I went to bed

You can se it was still coming down!

The next morning was beautiful and it was still lightly snowing but pretty much had stopped. I measured that it hit 9” at our house. Sean’s work was closed for the day and I was stuck working from home. There was no way we were going anywhere! Brandon’s school was of course closed and would end up being closed for the next 4.5 days due to the storm. We bundled the kids up and went outside to play in the snow. We had a blast going out to the field behind our house and playing in it. Olivia did not last very long in the snow and went back with CiCi but Sean, Brandon, and I built a snowman. The snow as very light and dry and a bit hard to make into snow balls.

Our backyard the next morning

Snow angel in the field near our house

Not quite sure what to make of the snow

Snow ball watch out mom!

Throwing snow balls

CiCi and Liv and Brandon playing in the snow

Sean and Brandon building a snowman

Working on the ball

Brandon and his snowman

Later in the afternoon we took our sleds down the street to a hilly side street and had a blast going down it with our sleds with some of the other neighborhood kids. The next day the snow had stopped and it was a clear and very cold day in the 20s so the snow was not going anywhere! I had several claims in the area and I decided to try to make the attempt to get to them. I had to hike to both of them after leaving my Subaru on side streets and worked really hard to get them completed only to come back home and find out that my work computer crashed and I lost all my work! I was so frustrated! Brandon ended up not having school on Friday and he and I went into my office for a while and then out on a claim (that did not require meeting a customer). Brandon was a trooper and luckily he had a break and got to go to indoor soccer practice and have his buddy Logan over for a while. We finished his snowman homework project.

Walking to go sledding in our neighborhood

View of the claim I hiked to on Thursday

Brandon's decorated snowman for his school project

That weekend we escaped and went south down to Corvallis for the long MLK day weekend and to see my parents and my sister Rachel and Jasper who were visiting for the week. Brandon had a blast being reunited with his best bud Jasper and the kids enjoyed going to the park, playing at my parent’s house, and playing with Pumpkin. It was so nice that there was little to no snow in Corvallis. We had a fun tea party and then said goodbye to Jasper and Rachel and headed back to the snow in Portland which even 6 days after the epic snow storm the snow was still there from Wilsonville up into Portland. It was still so bad that they ended up canceling school for Brandon on Tuesday and he even had a late start on Wednesday from the snow storm that was still lingering. Final later in the day on Wednesday the temperatures warmed up into the 40s and the snow melted! Never were we so happy to not see snow anymore!