December 22, 2006
I finally busted out of my apartment today and made my way to my parents' house. It was so hard to get there, took about an hour and a half--most of the time spent climbing and walking over and through snow and ice. I mean, there was SOOO much snow to navigate! At once point, I crossed a very busy street near my place (Colfax Ave). They've plowed that street, and on the other side, there was this huge hill that I thought was the plowed snow pushed to the side, which is usually very firm and can bear weight. In order to get completely over to the other side of Colfax, I had to climb over this wall of snow and ice, but as soon as I started down on the other side of it, horrors of horrors I realized that it was a DRIFT! And I sunk to mid thigh, and then toppled over! I was just flailing around and I could NOT stand up! I would start to get up and lose my footing from one side and then the other, and at one point almost went splat on my face! I started giggling and squeaking (and gasping for breath) because it was so cold and so ridiculous. All these cars started honking at me as they went by (I wasn't in the street-- I'm pretty sure that they were laughing at me). Anyway, when I finally managed to stand up I had snow up my pants and up my sleeves and down my neck, and I was just a mess! It was SOOOOOO cold!
Here are some pics I took at my mom and dad's place. The Backyard looking toward the alley where my dad's car got stuck (we spent part of the day digging his car out and my brother drove my dad's car back into the carport:
The backyard facing my parents' house (isn't the sky GORGEOUS??!!): 
and facing the neighbor's house on the right-- just LOOK how high the snow is on the gate!
The alley facing south-- the building the the very far back of the picture with all the windows is the dorms where I lived when I was in music school! See-- how sad. For college, I didn't even make it out of the neighborhood! But that's another story, so never mind!
My mother is busy scraping off my dad's car (with absolutely no regard for what she might have been doing to the finish-- she used an old broom and a GARDEN HOE to scrape and brush snow off of it...eeek! Think my dad might be mad when he sees what she's done! But we're not telling!):
The wind was blowing VERY hard during the blizzard and created this weird and neat "wave" in the carport overnight:
My mom worried that there might be a body under there, but we reassured her that it was just snow. An artistic closeup of that thing in the carport! It was actually very beautiful and I couldn't stop looking at it: 
Anyway, you know how kids always want to help you do whatever it is that you're doing, but they really create a bigger mess and more work when they do? Well, here's my niece showing up for the family effort to dig my dad's car out:
She basically pelted us with snowballs, threw herself onto the snow and floundered around, and packed it all down by running back and forth all over the place (making it harder to shovel, lol!):
She's awfully cute, though, so I couldn't stay mad even though she re-distributed snow all over the 8X6 feet space I shoveled out... Kids!
Anyway, after all that hard work, we siblings decided to go catch a bus downtown (there was no way we were going to be able to get a car out of the alley with all that snow!).
A house on the way to the bus stop:
A house on the way to the bus stop:
Check out how deep the drifts were at the bus stop. No place to stand but ON the bench!
(that's my brother, my niece, and my sister)
Downtown, we ate at Mici, a "handcrafed Italian" eatery (which has this intoxicating scent of rising dough and baked bread and garlic-- yum!). Here's the outside of Mici: 
Naturally, we ate INSIDE...Artsy-fartsy shot-- I love seeing how snow distributes itself!
Looking west on Downtown Denver's 16th Street Mall:
Not a lot of people out and about. Or maybe they all just went to the INDOOR malls, like Cherry Creek or Park Meadows...
Looking east at a cool building behind a lighted tree:
Anyway, getting home was hard. We decided to head back around 3:45-4:oopm. Normally, I would have reminded my brother how to get home on one of the buses (it's been more than a decade since he's riddent the bus, possibly longer!), and then taken a different one home myself. But he wasn't feeling well and was very sleepy, to boot. I decided that I better get him all the way to our folks' house and then just run across the street to catch another bus home (they pass by near the same time). Unfortunately, I forgot that our bus was late and the bus I wanted to be on had already passed about 5 minutes earlier AND the buses were on a Sunday schedule. Which meant that the next one wasn't coming for an hour. Fortunately, I didn't remember all that until about 40 minutes into my wait. Then it got dark, I got cold and anxious, and the bus was late and packed. I fought my way back through the uncharted snow in front of East High School, climbed back across Colfax Avenue, and trudged on home for another 3 blocks from there. I was so tired when I finally got home. It took me about 2 hours altogether. But the nice thing is, I discovered icicles all over my little "porch." I may not have even noticed them if I didn't have to fumble around for my keys with one hand while holding on to the metal railing with the other. I grabbed my camera and took some pictures.
These two that I like especially well:
above is without flash...below is with flash, AND extreme closeup to boot! Very cool, huh?!
On a final note, I've been thinking about how thankful I am for the gift of a White Christmas, lots of snow, the delight on my niece's face over said snow, and for all for the extra days off from work! Most of all, I'm thankful that God has created such a beautiful world for us to live in. I hope that you all find a moment or two to stop and really see the wonders of this Christmas season.
Merry Christmas, everyone! May you be surrounded by the love and laughter of family and friends, and may you experience the profound peace and joy of the Savior!
In Him,
Tinooseus
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