Record breaking weather

Chicago has seen at least a trace of snow on 14 days so far this season, the weather service said. The official tally is 9.3 inches of snow, the most this early in winter since 2005, when 11.7 inches had been recorded. 

As for temperature, Chicago has average 23.4 degrees so far, the 20th coldest start to winter since 1872. The beginning of 2010 was even colder, averaging 20.3 degrees.

It snowed again last night, and we're expecting 6 inches tonight - just in time to ring in the New Year! :) 

Merry Christmas!

What a wonderful holiday! Drew and I are so appreciative of the warm Florida weather now that we have something so drastically different to compare it to! It snowed the day we left for Florida - and it was snowing when we arrived home last night. It was so nice to visit with our family and good friends - and I just wish we had a couple more days, a couple more scrabble games with Liefke and got to visit a few more friends!

The highlights of the trip included boating with Derek, although the day started out cold, towards the afternoon we were able to go swimming, and enjoyed some great shelling on a sandbar. Shells in Chicago in December -a great Florida souvenir! We also were able to visit with our FL co-workers, and we both enjoyed our time with friends - although it was to quick! Liefke (my mother-in-law) taught me how to make almond cookies, so that was great to learn, and I can't wait to repeat it! We were able to visit with my family in Orlando, at a beautiful resort with warm pools, and Palm Trees - what a treat to have time together in such a beautiful setting! We attended a great Christmas Eve Service at our old church, and that was great.

We are so thankful to everyone we got to see and spend time with. As I write this it's snowing again…and I can't help but think what a looonnnngggg winter it's going to feel like. I expect we'll be chilly through April! It seems like a long time to be cold and snowy. We'll have several visitor's in February to break it up, so that is something we're really looking forward to! March brings a good friends bridal shower and celebration, as well as a family wedding in FL - so we're hoping to make it down again for that. Then in April, we'll be heading to Boston for the wedding of our close friends. May - September is a time I'm looking forward to exploring, and hopefully bringing the motorcycle up North for trips. This has been a great move for us, as homesick as I was leaving yesterday, I know this has been and is a great experience. I'm not sure how long we'll be here, but we are making the most of it!

As we readjust to the cold, we'll be looking forward to some cool weather adventures too:
Sledding
Skiing/Snowboarding lessons
Building a snowman
Visiting the Lincoln Park Conservatory (a tropical paradise) while it's snowing out :)
Going to theater and comedy shows to keep warm and entertained

Merry Christmas Everyone, hope this season, and the New Year are full of blessings for you!

Love, Holly & Drew

Some Photos from the last couple of weeks:

The day we left for FL:

The next day: Literally we had "Buckets of Fun!" from Flipper's Restaurant on the Water near Bonita Springs:

Derek had the dolphins jumping in our wake, to cool!

The day after walking in snow….

Visiting with my wonderful friends and former colleagues, Erika and Pat!

 Visiting with my wonderful friends and Book Club Ladies, Shani and Jodie! Can't wait to see them in Feb for girl's weekend!

Drew and my Dad after we got to Orlando

The resort in Orlando:

This was our "Florida" Christmas tree…I love the stand, that my Grandma and Uncle made!

 The cats are ready for the Holidays! Meowka sitting at the Table, and Sam under the Tree. Thanks Liefke for letting us all stay with you :)

All four of us on Christmas Eve!

 

Drew's sister Cora ordered aprons for a cousin in Canada who makes them for Christmas. Drew didn't want to be left out of the photo with his Mom and Sisters, so I let him borrow my apron :)

Great visit, sad to leave! I won't show you the photo of me saying good-bye :( 

Walking in a Winter Wonderland!

Saturday we woke up to a very white outdoors. It's snowed a few times so far this winter, but there were about 3-4 inches sticking yesterday. So we geared up in our warm weather clothes and boots, and took a walk outside. So much fun! We've never seen so much snow and been out in it while it's still been snowing. We definitely need to purchase a sled - being close to the park is a great opportunity to go sledding. We made snow angels, wrote in the snow (which we could still see from our 18th floor window), and went down to Lake Michigan to see what a beach in winter looks like (covered with snow instead of sand, and lightly frozen over). It was a lot of fun to walk through the snow, so peaceful and white. We also found some tourists that managed to drive down the bike path - that was a bit scary, but a runner was helping them turn around. We're loving Chicago, the change of weather, the opportunity to do so much right out our front door! Here's some photos:

Chilly Weather

We knew it would happen; that this winter would undoubtedly be one of the coldest in a while. I don't think we expected to see record breaking cold though.

Since Dec. 5, temperatures have been 14 to 16 degrees below average. Early Tuesday, it registered minus-6 degrees at O'Hare International Airport. That's the earlier subzero temperature in Chicago since minus-4 was recorded at O'Hare on Dec. 9, 1995. It was also the coldest temperature in the first 10 days of December since minus-8 degrees on Dec. 10, 1978. Tonight the windshield will bring temperatures to between -15 and -30!

That's not to say it couldn't warm up for January, but we aren't counting on it. I have to say being a Floridian it always crossed my mind, "How do people work in 0 or negative weather? How do they shop for groceries, how do they go to work and school?" Well, now we know! They bundle up, put their head down, and just do it. My job is close to home, so I walk two blocks there and back each day - it's quite an experience! We'll have to post a photo soon of what the bundling up process looks like - but picture two under layers, a knee length down jacket, rubber boots, mittens, hat and scarf. It's funny because by the time I make it to work I'm hot and have to turn on the fan for a few minutes.

We've learned that although the white snow is clean looking and beautiful, the gray/black snow is gross - and also I thought the snow would just come off the boots - but no, it sticks around tracking in gross sludge. I've also learned that I hate looking at Florida's forecast right now! It will be so nice to be there this time next week, but for now I'm avoiding looking :) 

I feel like we're earning a badge of honor. I still don't know how people can live in this their whole lives and not seek out an alternative, but for now I feel pretty proud that we're surviving it. We're looking forward to making snowmen, sledding, and skiing - but I have to confess I can't wait till it's gorgeous again, and the trees are green - and we can go outside for long periods of time!

Family Fun

Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving! Ours was nice and relaxing, but the rest of the weekend was busy! My mom and Jeff got here on Wednesday night, and we took them to Twin Anchors, a few blocks easy walk from our house. Thursday morning we got an early start, and went to downtown to see the Thanksgiving Day Parade. It was pretty cool to see all of the floats, and bands, and of course the big balloons. The weather cooperated, and it was fortunately not unbearable. (It's amazing that 30's is considered nice :)

Then we heated up the great dinner we'd ordered from a local grocery store - it was so easy and convenient to just stick everything in the oven, eat, and have minimal clean up. So nice to go the easy route for a change! Then we went to Lincoln Park Zoo to see the animals. Although the zoo is open 365 days a year, it seemed like they were short staffed, so a lot of the animals weren't out, or were dozing when we saw them.

Friday we went to the Museum of Science and Industry, and tried to go to the christkindlmarket chicago, but I have never been in such a cramped place, there were so many people, so we didn't stay. Instead we walked to Bergoff, a great German restaurant, and had dinner and liters there :)

Saturday we took it easy and went for Chicago style pizza, and then to a comedy show at Zanies. We hadn't been there before, and it's a great comedy club open 7 days a week, and a short walk from our house. (We got a bunch of free tickets on our way out and so last night we went back…more on this in a separate post).

Sunday we went to the Field Museum, spent the day there, and then came home and cooked my favorite meal, stuffed cabbage…yum! Then we walked to the Lincoln Park Conservatory where they are doing a Winter Flower and Train show - the Conservatory is amazing. It's huge, and it's tropical, and has ponds, ferns, orchids, Tahitian gardenias, and more - and they've added a mini Christmas and Train village - it was amazing, and free! It completely surpassed my expectations, and I definitely look forward to going back throughout this long winter :) After the Conservatory we walked next door to Zoo Lights. Every year Lincoln Park Zoo completely lights up (think Edison Home, but a Zoo). It was beautiful, they have a music show that the lights dance to, a green glowing dragon emerging from the water, it's very pretty, and free! The weather was a balmy 40, so it was a great night to be outside.

I'll post pictures soon, but for now we're getting ready to go out to a Historical Pub Crawl and Caroling. It's cold tonight, so we'll be bundled up and freezing. Happy December!