"Big Snow"

"There's a snowstorm forecasted for this weekend so be careful. We might be snowed in!" Pam, who is always so helpful and also just so happens to live up in the mountains, gave me this important bit of information when I saw her on Friday morning. She also told me that in Japanese, a snowstorm is called "O-yuki", as in "big snow".

Side note: I went to Sweden for two weeks during December/January over 10 years ago and someone told me that there are more than 20 (I think) different ways of describing snow in Scandinavian. I wonder how many different words they have of describing snow in Japanese? I know two now: "yuki" (snow) and "o-yuki" (snowstorm). They probably have a word for sleet and others too..?


Sure enough, we got our snowstorm on Saturday and so going to church on Sunday morning was a bit more of an ordeal than normal. :) We'd had snow before a few times, enough to settle and for Juhee to play in, but not this much! It took Peter a while to get the car ready to go and the snow continued to fall too. Thank goodness we already had our snow tires on! One family (with a 5 month old baby) took the bus to church because they didn't have their snow tires yet and it took them 80 minutes to get to church - eek! That's dedication.

After church, there was still a lot of snow around so Peter and Juhee played in the snow for a bit before coming in. They made a little snowman on a rock outside our entryway and a lion :) to guard our front gate. ;) It's hard to see from the picture, but the snowman did have all of his necessary facial features and two small twigs as arms.

Note to self: buy Juhee waterproof gear so she can play outside in the snow and not get her pants & socks all wet and cold.

According to an elderly Japanese lady, this winter is apparently going to be especially cold - eek!