Winter only lasted a day?

We have had some rain the past few days, but only one day of real snow.  Today it is 50 degrees and getting warmer.  Could it be that winter in the Treasure Valley only lasted a single day?

Gee, I sure hope not.

More pictures of...you guessed it...SNOW!!!!

I may be a little obsessed but seeing this wintery scene was one of the things I was greatly looking forward to when I moved to Idaho.  It was totally worth the wait, even if it will be short-lived.

My favorite pathway in the neighborhood.

Another shot of the path with the flash on, exposing the falling flakes.

The house...the entire cul du sac is covered in fluff!

Sierra doesn't know quite what to think about all the cold, wet white stuff

Yep, you can tell we're from SoCal...we didn't bring our patio furniture in for the winter
like all the other smart people living around us.  

The snow is supposed to stop sometime this afternoon, switching to rain, right around the time I need to pick the boys up from school.  I sure wish they'd had a snow day so they could've made snow men and romped in the snowy blanket with the dog, who finally figured out that snow=fun.  I'd go and play in it myself but it's just not as fun making snow angels without anyone to cheer you on and giggle with glee when they make them with you.

SNOW!!!!

The upside?

We've got SNOW!!!!

The downside?

It took me nearly an hour and a half to drive eighteen miles round trip to take Damien to school this morning.

Looks like we are on course to receive the 4-8 inches of fluff predicted. Unfortunately, it didn't start falling hours earlier...if it had, officials would have called a snow day and the pictures above would have featured the kids making snowmen in the front yard.

I am not looking forward to the drive back to the school to pick up Damien.

The forecast looks good!

We are under a winter storm warning...finally!  It looks like we will be getting a few inches of snow in the next couple of days, significant snowfall in the Treasure Valley, according to the local weather experts.  Here's what the National Weather Service, Boise Center, had to say...

URGENT - WINTER WEATHER MESSAGE
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE BOISE ID
416 AM MST TUE JAN 17 2012

...MAJOR SNOW EVENT WEDNESDAY THROUGH THURSDAY...

.A STRONG AND MOIST MID-PACIFIC WARM FRONT WILL MOVE INTO EASTERN
OREGON AND WESTERN IDAHO WEDNESDAY ABOVE COLD AIR ALREADY IN
PLACE. SIGNIFICANT SNOWFALL IS POSSIBLE EVEN IN THE LOW VALLEYS
BEFORE CHANGING TO RAIN WEDNESDAY EVENING. IN THE IDAHO
MOUNTAINS...SNOW MAY LAST ALL THE WAY UNTIL SATURDAY. THIS STORM
WILL ALSO BRING GUSTY WINDS ESPECIALLY TO AREAS CLOSEST TO THE
NEVADA BORDER.

http://www.wrh.noaa.gov/boi/

YEE-HAW!!!

It's beginning to look a little bit like winter...

I woke up to a white morning...well, sort of.

We did finally have snow yesterday, if you could call it that.  It was more of a morning snow flurry and it did stick in a few places.  But, the flakes that fell in the shady areas and stayed around long enough to accumulate into small patches of white melted just after lunch.  However, the wetness from the melt-off did not go away and temperatures dipped into the teens last night.  Creating what I saw this morning...

This is what it looked like just after sunrise at 8:18 a.m.  Notice the roofs of the neighboring houses...they are white but by noon they will be back to their regular tile color.

A whole bunch of frost.  There was enough glistening white icy stuff to make the sidewalks and grass look like a fairy had sprinkled her diamond dust around overnight, making little explosions of bright glitter as I walked the dog past the frozen grass lawns of the neighborhood.  There was even that characteristic little "crunch, crunch" as I passed over the ever-so-thin layers of ice on the sidewalks.  

In order to see the freeze, you have to get four-inches-from-the-tip-of-your-nose (or in my my case, -camera) close up...

"Icicles", or more like strands of "ice hair", as seen on the petal of a piece of a whimsical 5' tall  backyard flower

Everyone here, as much as they have complained about the inconveniently wet, snowy winter experienced last year, are yearning for more white stuff, especially since most of their ski passes to the local winter playground are gathering dust and seasonal workers at Bogus Basin have found themselves without a job.  We are all keeping our fingers crossed that the predicted days of real snow for the middle of next week actually materialize.  

As wonderful as these past warm, dry days have been, I, for one, am getting a little tired of winter looking like this...

and this...

and this...

and am excitedly looking forward to a picturesque, postcard-like winter's day. 

Even if it only lasts for a moment.  

"Sun, sun go away, come back another day.  Snow, snow, please come today, tell the sun to go away."

Happy 2012...where's the snow?

Well, happy 2012, folks!  It has finally arrived.  After a year of major changes, I am definitely looking forward to 365 days of settling in, basking in the wonder of being a resident of Idaho.  And, speaking of Idaho...

I thought there'd be snow.

At least a little more of it, anyway.

But, this fair state is on track to have the driest and mildest winter in some years.  Maybe nature is making up for the soggy seasons of early 2011...wet enough to fill all the reservoirs to the brink, so much so that even if we don't get anymore snowpack for future spring and summer watershed, we are covered for the rest of this year.

Maybe Murphy's Law is the cause.  After all, this Sarrazolla clan was expecting what we saw during our visit over Thanksgiving in twenty-ten.  I think deep down I really didn't believe the Boise residents who said that particular weather pattern during the week of Turkey Day 2010 was unusual.  Perhaps I was hoping they were wrong.  

In any case, I think it is strange indeed that the weather in Meridian at the time I checked the internet on they day we returned home from our SoCal vacay was warmer than that of Carlsbad (it was a momentary topsy turvy time as the difference reversed itself two hours later and into the afternoon).

If at least I can't see any snow in the near future, I'll enjoy the glorious winter sunsets out my back window...

Or the colors painted on the sky to the west of the sunrise...

And pretend that these little bright lights at "Garden Aglow" are man's best alternative to a glistening blanket of white....

Snow, snow...wherefore art thou, chilly glittering flakes falling from the heavens?   Please come soon (at least while I can still romanticize the notion of you).