Happy Fall!!

Well it looks like winter has arrived on Whidbey Island...and with winter comes the panic of people who arent used to the snow.

Something that really surprised me when I moved out here is that even though we're pretty far north, it really doesnt snow much in the Puget Sound area. Rain? Yes. But snow? Not so much. I had the joy of watching people freak out 2 winters ago when we had several feet of snow dumped on us, and it looks like it may be the same thing this winter.

It should be noted that this area lacks the ability to remove snow from the roads. There are no snow plows on the island and using salt is illegal in the state (something about affecting the salmon in the water, though I heard yesterday that they were using salt in Seattle so maybe this is something that has changed.)

Yesterday it snowed about 2 inches and you would have thought that the world came to an end. There were accidents everywhere. Everything starting shutting down. People who were on base were stranded there for a while because it was taking over an hour for everyone to leave through the only open gate. I can understand some of the panic. Without removing snow from the roads, the snow quickly becomes packed ice, so it makes sense that people would panic while driving.I think the best part about all of this is that in the middle of the snow panic, there was also an earthquake! Mr.V and I didnt feel it and I have to admit that Im a little disappointed. Earthquakes terrify me, but this was a small one, so I think I would have been ok feeling it. We were outside taking pictures when it happened, which is why I think we didnt feel it. Once we came back inside, Mr.V immediately got a text from his friend asking if we felt the earthquake, followed by several Facebook status updates about it. Meanwhile Mr. V and I were saying "what earthquake?" It seems that the general consensus is that it felt like a quick jolt. One guy said "It made my head sort of snap forward" while others described it as "It felt like something huge slammed into my house" Based on the fact that most people seemed to notice movement from inside their house, Mr. V and I assume we would have felt it had we been inside our house at the time. It figures that during the 5 minutes we spent outside we'd miss the 2nd exciting thing of the day. We actually doubted that the earthquake even happened but here's the map from the USGS earthquake site. I circled the quake in red. As you can see, the epicenter was right off the coast of the island, right in line with Oak Harbor. So apparently it really did happen and we just managed to miss it.And this is what the rest of fall is apparently going to look like. We've been experiencing below freezing temperatures for the past 2 days and it looks like that will continue for the rest of the week, so I doubt the snow is going anywhere any time soon. (And before anyone asks - my cats are indoor only cats that we occasionally let outside supervised. We weren't torturing them by putting them in the snow. We left the door open and the ones that wandered outside on their own seemed to really enjoy being in the snow.)

Fall in Washington

Its been a really long time since I've posted anything other than the Friday Fill-Ins so I guess its time for a little catching up.

The past few months have been pretty hectic. Lots going on - both good and bad.

A few of the highlights (not all necessarily good highlights):

~I've come to appreciate and enjoy Washington a lot more over the past few months (I can't believe I'm saying this). I think its because of several things, but the biggest thing being that our OSC has a fantastic woman in charge of planning activities. I've been here going on 3 years now and while I've found stuff to do on my own, our spouse club was severely lacking in fun activities. That never bothered me, because I was perfectly content to have nothing to do with the OSC, but just in the past few months we've had a lot of fun. Some of the drama filled wives have moved away and have been replaced with much nicer wives. And our social chair is always up for new exciting things so our club social calendar has been pretty full. I've been spending my time learning how to make soap, canning apples and making homemade applesauce (there are fruit trees all over this island including a peach tree in my own backyard which we baked several pies with and made peach butter), hiking the different trails on the island, crafting, and other random things like that. Its been keeping me pretty busy and pretty happy.

~On a sad note, we had a recent death in the family. My 20 year old cousin died very suddenly and very unexpectedly. We're still waiting on autopsy results, but the doctor's suspect that he had an undiagnosed heart problem which might have caused an aneurysm. He came home from work one night, said he didn't feel very good, went to sleep, and never woke up. It was definitely a huge shock to our family. The worst part is that this is my second cousin to die so young and so suddenly. Several years ago my 27 year old cousin (from the other side of the family) died from having a brain aneurysm. You would think this kind of stuff wasn't that common, but its happened to two very young people in my family now.

~On the topic of heart problems, one of my cats may have heart disease. I still have to make an appointment with a cardiologist for her, which I've been putting off because I'm scared to hear bad news. She has a pretty significant heart murmur, which doesn't necessarily mean heart disease, but it IS an indicator of it, so I'm hoping and praying that she'll be one of the lucky ones who just has a heart murmur, but no other problems. I just went through this with another cat, but thankfully, he ended up having asthma, and not a heart condition. (As a side note, I've become a pro at giving a cat 2 daily doses of an inhaler - something I never thought would be possible.)

~The very first person I met here is moving soon :-(. I was living in a pretty sketchy hotel (it was the only one in town that didn't care how many pets you had), while Mr. V was off on a Hawaii det, when we first moved here. We were waiting to close on our house so we spent 3 weeks at the hotel, and when Mr. V left I was pretty miserable. Thanks to a military wives online forum, I met Allison, who invited me over for lunch one day while Mr. V was gone. After traveling across the country for 3 weeks and then spending weeks in a hotel, I was just plain sick of restaurant food. Allison made egg salad sandwiches that day and I swear it was the best sandwich I've ever eaten. I still tell her that too. But her husband is getting out of the Navy in just a few weeks and then they are moving back to their hometown on Buffalo, New York. I'm really truly devastated that my first friend here is leaving already. But I guess thats the life I signed up for.

~On a happy note Mr. V dragged me along on another adventure this past weekend, which I thought was going to be horribly boring, but was actually a lot of fun. He's been obsessed with the big, snowy mountains that surround us since we've moved here and I have to admit that it IS pretty, but I am so sick of hearing "Look at the big, snowy mountains Brooklet!" every time the sun is out. He knows I'm sick of hearing it, but it doesn't stop him from saying it over and over! He's been wanting to drive the Cascade Loop (see info on it here , here and here) since we moved here. We took a trip to the North Cascade National Park when we first moved here and out of everything I've seen here in Washington, it just didn't impress me much. It still doesn't impress me and I don't know why. I think the Olympic mountains (to the west of us) are gorgeous , but the North Cascades (to the east) do absolutely nothing for me. The Cascade Loop is about a 10 hour drive total. He was going to do the drive with or without me, but he whined and begged for me to come along, and since our time together is limited to begin with, I caved in and agreed to go. I have to admit that I had a great time. We stopped in Leavenworth, which is where we went for a weekend when he returned from deployment. Its a cute, VERY tiny, Bavarian town that holds an annual Christmas lighting festival every December, which is what we went to last year. This year they were just finishing up their annual Oktoberfest when we got there. The leaves were changing. The sun was out for the entire trip. So I have to say that most of the drive was beautiful (though I'm still not impressed by the Cascades. Yes they're pretty, but I just can't get as excited as Mr. V does about them.) So here are some pictures:

(Near Marblemount, WA where we stopped for a picnic lunch)

(North Cascades National Park)

(North Cascades National Park - overlooking Hwy 20)

(Winthrop, WA - these pictures don't do the town justice. This town is what you hit as soon as you drive over the Cascades. We felt like we walked onto the set of a Wild West movie as soon as we got into this town.)

(Winthrop, WA - A real "Wild West" town)

(one of several funny old advertisements in Winthrop, WA)

(You have to love the schoolhouse turned brewery - Winthrop, WA)

(Winthrop, WA town hall)

(Winthrop, WA)

(me and my ice cream eating wild west buddy - Winthrop, WA)

(sunset over the Cascades)

(ever wonder where the famous Washington apples come from? Apparantly Wenatchee, WA which is where we spent the night. The place is full of endless rows of fruit trees - mostly apples obviously.)

(Leavenworth, WA)

(fall in Leavenworth, WA)

(Leavenworth, WA)

(fall in Leavenworth)