On The Road, Again

So, I'm off back home. I fly from Salt Lake to Huston, then on to London (Heathrow) from there. Now, there should be no problem for getting to Huston, but England (all of England) is under a blanket of snow. So is Utah, but Utah knows how to handle it. England freaked! The whole country has been shut down. I don't know if they'll have the runways sufficiently cleared for us to land! Once landed, I'm also not sure the trains will be running, so I can get home! Watch this space.....

Dashing Throught the Snow!

Dashing through the snow,
In a 2 horse open sleigh.
Or the fields we go, laughing all the way. (Ha! Ha! Ha!)
Bells on bobtails ring,
Making spirits bright.
What fun it is to ride and sing this sleighing song to night!

Jingle Bells! Jingle Bells!
Jingle All the Way!
Oh, What Fun It Is to Ride
In a 2 Horse Open Sleigh, Hey!
Jingle Bells! Jingle Bells!
Jingle All the Way!
Oh, What Fun It Is to Ride
In a 2 Horse Open Sleigh!

A day or two ago,
My mother booked a ride.
And so we set right out,
My parents by my side.
With friends we rode along,
Across the fields of snow.
Hiding in a groves of trees we saw a little doe!

3 Things I Wish I'd Taken A Photo Of

There's been so many funny things happen on campus this last week. I keep meaning to bring my camera in with me, but keep forgetting. And it's big and bulky (takes a great photo, but not the best for keeping with you all the time.) But there were a few that I really wish I'd been able to photograph:

1. The giant Snowman.

• BYU has this enormous statue of an Indian outside the Library. And someone (well, probably several someones) got inspired by the 11 inches of snow we got in one night (remember the night I wasn't able to get home?) and cover it in the statue in snow, making it look like a snowman. It was so funny!

2. The Snowangel Maker.

• On Wednesday, as I was walking across campus, I noticed someone lying down in the snow in the centre of this little decorative circle area. He was making a snowangel. That he made an angel was funny, but I would have loved to get a photo of him actually doing it!

3. The Ramiampton.

• Those same people who made the giant snowman didn't stop with just that. Oh no. They also created this enormous tower of snow. At first I thought it was another giant snowman. But then I realised there were stairs going up to the top! And I even saw people up there! It was so funny. Loved it.

Clearly some people have too much time on their hands. But I'm glad they provide all sorts of entertainment for the rest of us!

New Diggs

Well, the snow drama continues.

Yesterday, after having spent the night up in Salt Lake with my sister, I came back down to PG. And discovered that I still couldn't get up the hill. So I stopped at my aunt and uncle's house, and asked if they would kindly let me stay the night. Since Aunt Cindie had been really hoping I'd move in with them.... she was thrilled. And so I asked if it would be ok if I did move in. She was ecstatic! She took me up the side of the mountain to where I'd been staying to collect most of my stuff. I still have a couple of things, but got 95% of it last night. So, I've moved from one end of the street to the other (flat) end. It's going to be great fun to live with my aunt and uncle.

Also, Uni continues to go well. I hired a Teaching Assistant today... wow does that feel odd. But I like it! He's a very nice junior (one year left of a 4 year degree) in the department. And, bless him, he's getting married next week. I personally think he's nuts to get married mid-semester, but whatever works, I guess. Anyway, he's already been very helpful.

Snow Much Fun!

Well, my first day was brilliant. It seems that the head of my department is pleased with me, which is always a good thing. I had several students come up to me after class enthusing about the course. I even bumped into one on my way out to my car this evening and I asked how his first day had been. He said it was great, but that my class had been his favourite. Always good for the ego ;-) I got all the paperwork done for payroll and getting my office key. Still need to get a parking permit, and figure out how to get a BYU email address, but for the first day that's pretty good!

It started snowing today just after lunch, around 1.30. It was coming down pretty hard, too. By 5, when I got out to my car to head home, it was 4 or 6 inches deep. Seriously. Took me ages to dig the car out enough to be able to drive. And I was in a skirt and heels! A 45 second walk left me looking like I had a serious dandruff problem, and it took me an hour and a half to drive what normally takes 20 minutes. And then, when I finally did get home . . . I couldn't actually get home! I live at the top of a great big hill (right at the base of Mt. Timp in PG), and the snow was so deep, and my little car so light, that I actually could not get up it. Nice. Decided walking up the hill wasn't really an option. Not in heels, through ankle deep snow. And where was I going to leave the car?!? Since I'd already made plans to stay the night in Salt Lake at my sister's, I decided to go on up. So I did. Carefully. Slowly. Safely. Got there fine. 2 hours later. (It normally takes about 30 minutes from my house to her's.) Yeah. It was fun. Actually, it was. It's been a long time since I've had to drive so carefully. Good for me. Course, I arrived at my sister's with nothing but the clothes on my back. Luckily, we're about the same size. Kind of nuts, but such a Utah Adventure!

Happy New Year!

I did it! This is the completion of my 2008 Resolution: to blog at least once/week, every week. Ok . . . there are a few holes. When I was in Morocco, for example. And when I was having serious computer issues and 2 house guests. But other than those, I managed it! Ooooh, I guess that means I'll have to come up with a new resolution for 2009. Hmm. I'll have to give that some thought.

I'm on my way to Utah today. I'll be leaving my folks' house in just a little while. I'll get into Utah tomorrow, though. We're not driving the whole way in one day. We could, but it would make for a really long day. So, since we've got friends in Idaho Falls, which is more or less half way, we stay the night there. Saturday I'll be moving into my new place. I'm staying with the professor I'm covering for at BYU this term. Sunday I'll have to check out my new Ward, then Monday, bright and early, it's full force lecturing! BYU's terms start so early! I've got so used to the 'normal' system of mid to late January. Never mind. I'll cope. But it would have been nice to have one extra week with my folks before getting thrown back into the deep end!

Sunday was kind of an exciting day for us here at my folks' house. We got snowed in. Well, really we got drifted in. The weather has been so cold that the snow has stayed really light and powdery. And then the wind picked up Saturday night. Blew all the snow into the road and drive. My folks live on a private road, so the city doesn't plow. We got up, got dressed, and jumped in the car and jeep. Only after we nearly got the jeep stuck, and did get the car stuck, did we realise exactly how bad the drifting was. We eventually got the car dug out, and all us back inside. Then Dad and Steve went out to try and dig out the driveway. That took a little over an hour. Of course, by this point we've missed Sacrament Meeting. Dad decided to go on in (once we eventually got dug out to the private road. That's a long drive they've got!) to teach his Deacons Quorum Lesson. Only thing was? When he got back? The weather had warmed up a bit, so the snow had gotten a lot heavier and denser. So it wasn't pushing aside, like it did when he went out to church. The road still wasn't plowed, so he'd tried to bully his way through the drifts, and got the truck stuck. So he and Steve spent another hour (or more, I forget now) digging the truck out. And it was in 4-wheel-drive! Kind of a fun experience!! I'll post photos when I get to Utah. They're on my camera, and it's kind of a pain to transfer to my folks' computer.

Happy Christmas

I meant to get this posed ages ago, but I've been fighting for computer time!

Santa was good to me this year. He brought me the most awesome adventure! Steve (my brother-in-law) and I each had an envelope. Apparently Dad'd had to tell Lois about it, so she didn't get to open the present. Inside the envelopes were 2 pieces of paper that had been cut up into puzzles, then mixed together. So Steve and I spent 5 or so minutes figuring out what the photo in the puzzle was. It was someone snowmobiling in front of Old Faithful. So I guessed, 'We're going snowmobiling through Yellowstone?' And my folks said, 'Yes!' Oooooh boy! I was excited!! My folks live about 2 hours from the Montana side of Yellowstone. Unfortunately, the snowmobiling only leaves from West Yellowstone, which is the other side. A 5 hour drvie away. So as soon as we could get cleaned up and ready, we jumped in Jeeves (the Jeep) and headed out.

The drive over was kind of fun. We saw hundreds of dear and antelope grazing on the field stubble. We saw a few buffalo, too. And loads of hawks, and even one bald eagle. But when it got dark, we realised we were driving into a storm. It took us quite a bit longer to drive what ought to have been the last hour. It was snowing pretty hard. But that was ok, because it meant we'd have fresh snow for the morning's adventure. And they definitely had plenty of snow in West Yellowstone when we arrived. (Our 'parking space' at the hotel. When I jumped out of Jeeves, I was thigh deep in snow.)

Turns out, they'd not had any snow, all winter, then all the sudden last week, wham -- 26 inches in one night. But it'd been so cold (20 F was the high when we were there, and it hit 0 F just as we were leaving to go back to Billings, with a low of -13 F. That's -7 C to -13 C and the low was -25 C. Cold.) that the snow was too dry to compact. So when the park services would come through with the grooming machines on the trails, the snow wouldn't compact down. That meant that when the big 'Snowcoaches' (vans with snowmobile treads for wheels) came through, they tore up the trails, leaving big gullies and hashed snow behind. Made for hard work keeping things on the straight and narrow. But it was seriously good fun. We started out around 9.00 am (we arrived to the shop at 8.00, but it takes a while to get suited up) and got back just a bit before 5.00 pm. So, it's quite a long day. You go out to Old Faithful (30 miles from West Yellowstone), watch the eruption, have lunch, and come back to West Yellowstone. I know that doesn't sound like much, but along the way you stop and see hot springs, geysers, mud pots and hopefully a few animals. We didn't see as many animals as we'd hoped to, but it was still fun! And exhausting. By the time we got back to West Yellowstone, we were shattered. The cold is so draining. Poor Lois said she'd never really been warm enough the whole day. The rest of us had been fine, up until the last hour, or so. Dad was warm the whole time. Lois was really suffering on the last hour. We popped her in the front seat of Jeeves and turned on the seat heater and the regular heat full blast. Even still, it wasn't 'til we were most of the way home that she (well, all of us, really) finally actually warmed up. But it was worth the cold. At one point as we were zooming along the snow I remember thinking, 'Thank Goodness Mom and Dad moved away from Mississippi.' It isn't that there's nothing to do in Mississippi, because there's loads. But the problem is, it's either too hot, or not warm enough to enjoy most of it! And, of course, I like snow. I know. The rest of the world thinks I'm absolutely insane. But I do. I like shoveling it. I like driving in it. I like playing in it. I like looking at it. I like snow. And I'd really missed it since moving to England and my folks moving to Mississippi. But now that they're back North, I'll get to play in it again! Yeay!!

We got home around 10.00 pm, which was really pretty quick. We'd had to go kind of carefully the first half, because all that snow had turned to ice on the roads. But we still made it in a little under 5 hours. We were really glad to get home and out of the Jeep, though! And especially glad to get into bed. It was a really long, tiring day. But so much fun. This is one of the highlights of my life!

Easter Snow?

Woke up Easter Sunday morning and started down the stairs. In my house, the stairs face the back garden, and there is a window looking out. Imagine my shock when I looked out the window and what did I see? I'll give you a hint -- it was white, but not 'Popcorn popping on the Apricot Tree'. More like someone got overly excited with the popcorn maker and sprayed it everywhere! We had SNOW!!! I've seen a grand total of maybe 3 inches of snow in the 4 years I've lived in England. None of it later than mid February. And by the time I got to Church (10.00 AM) it was more than an inch deep. My grandmother is visiting. She had Shingles last summer, and has some residual pain from that, which causes her not to be able to sit on a hard bench for 3 hours of Church without really suffering, so in the middle I darted off to collect her for Sacrament Meeting (which we have last). I had to be very careful driving out, because the snow had reached 4 inches by that time, and Colchester simply was not prepared for it. It continued to snow all through Sacrament, reaching the staggering depth of 6 inches! Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on who's side you're on) it quit snowing and started to melt by the end of Sacrament meeting, so I didn't get a photo of it at its deepest. Never mind.

After Church I came home and got dinner started. The West family came to my house for Easter dinner. We had roast beef, roast potatoes, mashed sweet potato, green salad, carrots and parsnips for dinner, and Vanessa made a raspberry trifle and a chocolate birthday cake (for me!) for dessert. The kids played with the playmobil sets Mom gave me for Christmas, and had a great time slaying dragons and jousting knights. All in all there were 11 people (me included) in my house for dinner: Claire (housemate), Russ (her boyfriend), David, Vanessa, Elliot, Camilla, Jonny, Hannah and Jordan (West), Grandma and me! Loads of fun. Thanks for coming, everyone!