Holding Pattern

We are in a holding pattern.  In the short term we are effectively snowed in and have been since Thursday.  Only around six inches of actual snow, but since Portland doesn't have much infrastructure for snow removal the streets are a mess and it's best just to stay in.  We've made the trek on foot to the strip mall up the hill, but that's about it.  Definitely getting cabin fever, thank God the Olympics are on to distract us a bit.

In the longer term, we had been expecting our container to show up yesterday but it appears it will be at least a week later than we thought.  Apparently "arrival in Portland" just means that the container arrives on a train… then it needs to go through customs (3 days to 2 weeks) and then to the logistics company warehouse and a moving team needs to get scheduled.  So there's still hope it will happen late next week, but we'll see.  The train was supposed to arrive yesterday but who knows if that actually happened with the snow.

All this means we haven't been able to move into our house which at this point we are very much itching to do.  All the painting and contractor work has wrapped up and the house is just waiting for us.    It will be at least eight weeks between shipping out and arriving… and it's feeling every bit that long.

So we've basically hit pause.  Nicole snagged us a big outdoor play structure on Craigslist,best part is it's free. I broke most of it down Wednesday and planned to move it to the house Thursday until the snow hit mid-day.  Now we need to wait until we can safely drive the borrowed pickup truck over the hill into the city… and I guess also until we can see the play structure parts through the snow.

Putting on a show with her friend Liana (there were lots of costume changes)

Playing drums with paint brushes

 Like checking out an animal at the zoo but in this case just watching Lily climb a tree in the snow storm.

 Say cheese

 Paul needs a haircut. : )