Weather

Hail Again!

Published on by Casey

In the nearly 12 years I’ve been a resident of Colorado, we’ve never had any hail larger than something between pea and marble – mostly pea, at home. Denver and the plains are another story (you can read about last year’s hail storm here). That came to a end on Monday. Monday evening a storm came through that dropped hailstones the size of ping pong and golf balls. Of course, our cars were outside. Noah was able to throw a piece of foam on the top of my car to help deflect some of the hail. I stood in the garage and watched the hail fall, processing through every stage of grief during the onslaught. When the storm had passed, assessments and hailstone collection began. Our cars got dinged, but I know they won’t be totaled. Our camper survived, minus one hole in the AC shroud. Our roof has some questionable marks. Once again, I’m thankful for good insurance. The roof inspection has been scheduled, but we still need to call to take our cars to the catastrophe center that State Farm set-up in the next town over (some parts of that town got hit with baseball-size hail). When I moved to Colorado, I was warned about snow, blizzards, and the occasional tornado, but no one warned me about hail.

Here’s a picture of the some of the hail I collected in the front yard:

Hail!

Published on by Casey

May 8th was a dark day. literally. The skies were black and angry over Denver. And then the clouds opened up and dumped not just rain, but hail. Large chunks of it – golf ball sized in fact. The hailstorm lasted for 30-40 minutes whilst I stood inside with my colleagues commiserating over the fate of our vehicles. At one point, hail started crashing through the ceiling of one of the buildings and several coworkers ran over to the building where I was taking refuge with a large gymnastics mat overhead. Finally, the storm subsided with a foot of hail piled up on the ground. We all trudged through the sloppy, wet, ice piles and made our way to our battered vehicles. My car came out better than some – no shattered windows. However, damage was evident everywhere! Dents galore, broken vents, shattered brake lights, and one of my wipers fell off as I drove home. My poor car is only four-years-old. I’m thankful for good insurance and hopeful my car won’t be declared a total loss.

2015 in Review

Published on by Casey

Why I suck at maintaining this blog. But honestly, it’s been a low priority behind work, raising a child, graduate school, volunteer work, etc. I love the idea of always being on top of this site, and in fact probably could squeeze it in as a brain break, if nothing else. So, instead of doing a bunch of posts about what happened in 2015, here’s an annual review. You can view pictures from 2105 at our share site here. If you need access, let me know.

January –

We rang in the new year whilst visiting family in California. I was sick and went to be around 10:00 p.m. Sleep trumped watching a ball drop three hours delayed. A few days later, we watched one of my high school friends get married. Yay, Becca!

February –

In February, my friend Jennie came to visit. We all enjoyed visiting a couple local ice festivals, eating fresh snow cones and watching Logan fit into a contortionist’s box.

March –

The big event this month was Logan turned five years old! The past years have just flown by! But five is such a fun age! Logan loves all things Marvel so we had a few friends over for an Avenger’s themed birthday party. The weather was great, always tricky for March in Colorado. Last year it snowed 9″ the day of his party. This year, is was sunny and in the 80s. Perfect pinata weather!

April –

For Easter we invited some friends over and continued our annual backyard egg hunt tradition. Thankfully the weather cooperated! I think it was around 70*.

May –

This month we went to a hot air balloon festival, celebrated Noah’s birthday and took Logan to his first cinema showing! Because Colorado, it snowed on Mother’s Day, which killed my plans for hiking or fishing. So, plan C was to take Logan to see Age of Ultron. He even dressed up as Thor for the event! Memorial Day weekend also officially kicks off camping season, so we headed up to Steamboat Lake for a much desired mountain getaway. The weather was not warm (30-50s), and it rained, sleeted or snowed each day. My are we thankful for our camper and the heater inside! Despite the weather we had a lot of fun!

June –

In June Logan started t-ball, we vacationed in Utah and I started horseback riding again. Logan really loves t-ball, even if he was the slowest runner and enjoyed playing in the dirt more than watching where the ball went. 🙂 We spent a few days in the beginning of June helping our friends settle into their new house, in Utah. Noah used his handyman skills to fix faucets, stoves, walls, etc. I used my painting skills to help transform their kitchen into a welcoming and cozy environment. We also happened to be in town during Pony Express Days, so the kids were able to have a lot of fun watching the parade and riding carnival rides at the fair.

July –

More camping! For the fourth of July weekend we camped at Rifle Gap. The best weather day was on the fourth. Logan enjoyed splashing in the lake, Hurricane enjoyed sniffing every bush and Noah and I enjoyed sitting in chairs, soaking up the sun, cool drink in hand, watching it all. We also finally did some camping at our mountain property (summer is a short month at 9300-ft). Always a nice getaway with beautiful views of the Mosquito Range. Noah and I celebrated our 11th wedding anniversary and as a gift to him, I gave him a new truck. Ha! Not really a gift, but it was purchased the day before our anniversary. The F350 Diesel is a big improvement over the Ram 1500 and needed to accommodate Noah’s large work trailer. I also moved into a new position at work, as a Behavior Technician. A nice step in the right direction toward my ultimate goal of becoming a BCBA.

August –

Our big event this month was our trip to Canada! We loaded up the camper and headed to Alberta. We spent a week traveling around the southern half of the province (and ventured into British Colombia one day). We stayed in Writing-on-Stone, Dinosaur, Calgary, Edmonton and Banff. Such a beautiful province and very friendly people, especially those from Manitoba. Logan has decided we should go to Manitoba for our next Canadian excursion. Also in August, Logan started kindergarten and we celebrated my birthday.

September –

Our final camping hurrah for the year. We went to Ridgeway with some friends and camped over the Labor Day weekend. Another trip we were glad for the camper. No one wants to cook outside in the rain. We did have some nice weather, about half of the trip, but not enough to get in any fishing. We just could not avoid rain this year camping. Even in Canada, it rained one day/night whilst we stayed in Banff. Also in September, Noah’s grandparents celebrated their 65th (!!) wedding anniversary! So we celebrated with them in a mini-family reunion.

October –

Noah missed Halloween this year due to elk hunting season. But before he left we made a trip to the pumpkin patch. Grandpa Mike  came to Colorado to continue the tradition of hiking around the divide with Noah in search of the ever elusive elk, and he was able to help Logan carve a pumpkin before they had to leave. This year, Logan was going to dress up as Iron Man for Halloween, but he ended up with a stomach bug and missed trick-or-treating. Our wonderful neighbors, however, took up a collection of candy for him, as they went door-to-door.

November –

Grandma Diane came out to spend some time with Logan whilst the menfolk were hunting. They had a great time. We joined some friends for the Thanksgiving feast. This year we even had a white Thanksgiving! First time in the nine years I’ve lived in Colorado that it wasn’t in the 50s on Thanksgiving. Good thing Noah put the Christmas lights up on the house before the storm. We also chose that weekend to get our Christmas tree and Logan got to visit Santa. This month, Logan also had his first experience riding a horse, not tethered to a bar (i.e. pony ride).

December –

This month brought joys and heartaches. Noah’s grandpa passed away on the 10th, we attended his funeral the following week. On the 11th, Logan had his first surgery. Nothing major, he had to be put under general anesthesia to remove wax buildup inside his ears. We also had our first (and probably only) snow day of the year, where 10″ fell on the 15th (as I write this post nearly two weeks later, my yards are still covered in snow from that storm). We decided to stay home for the holidays. We enjoyed spending time with the extended family that visiting during the funeral events, friends at a Christmas party and we continued our traditions of riding the Georgetown Loop Christmas train and visiting the Denver Zoo for Zoo Lights. Christmas was a relaxed affair spent at home, enjoying watching Logan open gifts and awe over the fact Santa brought him exactly what he wanted. New Year’s will be much of the same, staying home and relaxing. No promises on whether or not Noah and I will stay awake until midnight.

Hope you all had a wonderful and enjoyable 2015 full of memories to last a lifetime. We look forward to all of the fun 2016 will bring!

Summer in Colorado

Published on by Casey

Summer in Colorado is just as schizophrenic or bipolar as any other season in Colorado. Funny thing about these mountains is that they decide what the weather will be, whether it’s been forecast or makes sense.

Case in point: September 12, 2014. Season: still summer. However, it snowed. That’s right folks, it snowed in the summer. At my house, it was only a trace amount and thus cannot count as the “official” first snowfall of the season. For that, 0.10″ of snow needed to fall and be measured. It’s quite possible that much, or more, fell, but this early in the game accumulation is sparse. The ground is still too warm.

However, if you don’t believe me that it snowed, here’s a picture of my car. See that white stuff? That’s snow.

SummerSnow

It’s that time of year again

Published on by Casey

Fall entered Colorado, and two week’s later we had our first snow. Yup, it’s that time of year again. The forecast was only for a dusting, maybe we were lucky, on grassy surfaces. As often is the case with Colorado weather forecasts, especially of the white variety, I wasn’t going to hold my breath. However, I was very much surprised when I let the dogs out on the morning October 4th and saw not only large flakes falling from the sky, but a decent coating of the white stuff all over my lawn. I was even more surprised that morning when I had to brush 2″ of it off my car before I could drive to work! Incidentally, there was zero, zip, zilch accumulation at my work, 20 miles away. I didn’t even see any snow fall the 8 hours I was there.

Well, be that as it may, we started our snow season off with a decent 2″ of heavy wet snow.  If you want to follow our snowfall season, and keep up with how much we accumulate between now and May (yes our “winter” lasts that long), bookmark this page: Snow Totals 2013-2014

The Rest of December!

Published on by Casey

Last year we drove to California for Christmas. This year we opted to stay at home. Logan was old enough to enjoy Christmas, I wanted a tree and we have been having plenty of snow so I was very hopeful for another white Christmas.

Instead of us going to see Gramma, Grampap, Aunt Gretna and the dogs, they came to see us (really, just Logan).

gma-cook
Helping Gramma make cookies

gwa-reading
Reading books with Aunt Gretna

gpap
Hanging out with Grampap on Christmas Eve

The trend for snow continued, and three days before Christmas we received 24-inches of fluffy white powder! We were all ecstatic for the snow (except for maybe Noah, who helped his brother plow and shovel). Gretna was able to experience her first white Christmas. We all enjoyed playing in the snow, and Logan helped Gretna and me build a snowman in the cul-de-sac, a dangerous location. The snowman had many close calls with Death in the forms of: neighbor’s minivan getting stuck, the mail truck, the garbage truck, and a neighbor’s cheep turning donuts. We eventually set cones around it until the weather warmed up enough where he was already starting to melt away.

To top off the snowfall, we even received another 1/2-inch on Christmas Eve!

Logan was not overly excited with opening gifts on Christmas morning. He had already been up for a while, had grown quite cranky and was ready for a nap. Alas, he enjoyed his presents after he had taken a morning siesta.

It was a great Christmas with all of the snow and family.

A Summary of (most of) December

Published on by Casey

December was a busy, cold and snowy month. It felt very much like Christmas. We made sure Logan had plenty of opportunities to meet Santa, this year, starting with Santa Cow at Chic-Fil-A:

santacow

Logan was recovering from a cold, but was not one bit afraid of Santa Cow, and even offered him a high-five! After breakfast, we headed out to buy our Christmas tree…in the snow. I was the only one who thought that was a fun outing.  It was incredibly cold (15 degrees-ish) and snowing. Logan got cold and Noah got cranky (but then again, he didn’t bring his gloves). I will concede that it is difficult to unwrap a frozen tree.

At the beginning of December we got almost a foot of snow in a couple of days. It made for a wonderful family photo op, that would have only been improved by Logan not being sick:

snowpicwithmomma

Once he was feeling better it was time again for not one, but two more opportunities to meet Santa! One of the perks of living in a small town is all of the fun and free events the chamber puts on. Santa was set-up downtown with Victorian carolers. Unfortunately we missed the reindeer, but Logan didn’t seem to mind.

santa2

The following opportunity was at the neighborhood Christmas party. Logan ran right up to Santa and wanted to sit on his lap, unlike the other children. He was very happy to receive a candy cane. 🙂

santa3

But the best part of December was yet to come…

Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow!

Published on by Casey

Welcome winter! The first snow of the season is always exciting and so far we’re off to a great start! In the past 24 hours or so we had our first snow – a whopping 8-inches! We didn’t have any storms last season that even came close to that total!

Thankfully, that snow also came before the time change, so Logan and I were able to enjoy it before the sun set behind the mountains! Logan LOVED the snow!

Remember too, that with the first snow means you can now track all of this season’s snow fall right here!

Snow? What snow?

Published on by Casey

I keep hearing reports of places around the country getting snow – some of which usually don’t get a lot.  In fact, this doesn’t even apply to just the US, as my friend in Dublin recently received several inches of the wet white stuff.  I also, fairly regularly, hear about snow falling in the high country, snarling traffic, increasing avalanche danger, etc.  However, when I look out my window I see dry grass and leaf-less trees.  It looks like it should be winter, but feels more like autumn (yes, yes, I do know that according to the calendar it technically is still autumn.  But in Colorado, winter typically lasts from October-April).

So far this year we have had a measly 2.0-inches of snow fall at our house…in mostly 1/2-inch increments. This time last year we already had 31.5-inches!  That is a BIG difference (stinkin’ La Nina)!  I had a fun idea for a family photo opp that would involve us all wearing Santa hats and posing in the snow…only in order to actually find snow, we would have to drive 2+ hours (depending on ski traffic).  No thank you!

Granted, since I commute appx. 90 miles (round-trip) 5-days a week, I don’t mind having to deal with snow-packed and icy roads.  However, it would be nice for it to look and feel a little bit more like Christmas.

I truly think Colorado is having a California identity crisis this year given the many destructive brush fires and the lack of snow.  And when it does decide to snow at my house this year, who wants to place bets that it will be when I’m in California?

Alas, no snow for the family picture, but Logan did get to meet Santa this past weekend, so that mostly (kinda, sorta) makes-up for it (at least temporarily).