The big thaw

Early this week, Liesel and I made an offer on the house, but unfortunately the seller wasn't ready to accept our price. They had just recently dropped their price, so they wanted to see if their price drop generates any other interest in their house. So we told them that our offer still stands, and we will carry on looking at other places. Fortunately for us, we are not desperate and have plenty of time to find the right place! We know that God has a place for us, and we just need to wait for His timing.

It's been weeks since we last saw this, but I am happy to announce that the temperatures this week have finally forced themselves back above freezing!!! In fact, today, Sunday, was like having a heatwave as our outdoor thermometer recorded a temperature of 10C (that's about 50F for Axinja, Brian, Robin ;-) )

On Saturday, we headed off to the store to look for some luggage for myself. I have been asked to go on training for 4 days in Philadelphia, and we only have the 5 huge suitcases that we landed in the USA with. Using one of these would be overkill for a 4 night excursion! Now here's another reason why we LOVE America: Kohl's was having a Super Saturday Sale, and we found a 4 piece luggage set that was $119 on sale for $39! Nothing wrong with that!

That evening, Liesel went out leaving the two boys alone ;-) The guys just hung out and had fun (until Nath's bedtime of 7:30PM)! I then relaxed with a DVD.

On Sunday, we woke to a minor ice storm. Luckily at 9am when we were getting ready for Church the temperature was about 3C and the ice had generally melted away. After Church, we went to a local restaurant for lunch. It was not bad.....

Later that afternoon, as the temperature peaked at 10C, Liesel decided it was a great day for a walk! It was quite an experience seeing how much snow was still left over from the blizzard! Nathan loved finding puddles to make huge splashes in! He also enjoyed poking the snow with a stick! Once outside, it was quite a mission to convince the little guy to go back indoors!!! Who can blame him, because it has literally been weeks, maybe months since he could last run around outside, in the relative warmth!

THE blizzard of '07 - and walking on water!!

On Tuesday, management sent out an e-mail that all employees should go home earlier that day, due to an approaching blizzard! Also, we were warned not to drive into work on Wednesday if the conditions were bad........ (understatement of the year). To get home that day, a trip that normally takes me 25 minutes, took me over an hour! It was bumper to bumper traffic, all travelling at speeds no higher than 20mph! The highways had not been plowed, and only 2 of the 3 lanes were being used as the snow on the third lane was too thick and slippery to use!

When we woke up on Valentine's day, we were greeted with a sight that I thought my South African would never see! Two feet of snow had accumulated through the night! This totally covered pathways, shrubs and even cars! Snow was up to the top of most cars' wheels, which indicated that Mother Nature had no intention to allow anyone to drive to work, or anywhere else! My Nike hiking boots were pitiful against the 24 inches of frigid white powder!!! Even Nathan was overwhelmed when he stood next in the freshly carved pathway and the snow rose to around his armpits! Not your average snow storm!


There were places where I was up to my waist deep in snow!! It was incredible!! It was as if I had walked onto a National Geographic program on the winters of Alaska!! I was expecting to see a polar bear peer from behind the garages at any moment ;-)
After walking around in this knee deep snow for a couple of days, Liesel and I decided that we were in dire need of proper snow boots! Liesel got herself a pair of tall Woolen Shearling boots (thanks Axinja for your invaluable advice) which she loves! I bought myself some Rocky Snow boots which are waterproof and keeps you warm up to temperatures of -20F (-29C)! This made a huge difference and we finally found out how much fun snow can be when your feet aren't entering a hypothermic state and your socks are still dry!! So much so that on Sunday we drove down to Lake Erie again! This time it wasn't ice that covered the lake, but snow!!! It was white for as far as the eyes could see. There were even people who had decided to go for a walk on ,what is normally Lake Erie, for approximately 10 months of the year! Of course, I couldn't be here in Cleveland, with a frozen lake before me, and NOT go walking across the solid waters of Lake Erie! It was awesome! I even managed to dig down with my glove-covered hand until I found the waters of lake Erie, about 4 - 6 inches below me!!!

On a final note, please feel free to pray for us as Liesel and I make a decision about buying a house this week, and whether this is the right house for us! We found out that the price on our dream house has been lowered, which makes its slightly more affordable to us! I hope to see a financial advisor this week and sit down with him to crunch out some numbers, and then a decision will be made!

Videos of snow.... lots of snow!

Go have a look at my video-blog, where I have uploaded 5 videos from Valentine's blizzard!

http://mccarthys-videos.blogspot.com

Global Warming - I wish!!!!!!

Another week has gone by with the temperatures averaging around the -10C mark! No hint of any weather bold enough to even attempt to ascend above the freezing mark! Liesel even commented tonight on the way back from Bible Study, "It's warm outside!", and the temperature was -4C (25F) according to her car! My, how we have changed!

On Saturday morning Liesel went out with a friend to do some shopping for MOPS. So the boys were left alone to entertain ourselves. I decided to get Liesel's car washed (as the cars in the USA get very quickly covered in a horrible grey residue as salt and other chemicals are sprinkled on the roads to prevent the water from freezing!). Apparently, everyone else in Westlake came up with the same ingenius idea, and had all descended upon the local carwash. So Nathan and I waited patiently in the carwash line for about 45 minutes! Luckily we have a variety of CD's in the car that he and I could sing at the tops of our South African voices ;-)

After being cooped up in his car chair for over 45 minutes, I took pity on him, and took him to the lake shore, so he could walk around with me. It also gave me a chance to see the progress of the freezing of Lake Erie! And I was not disappointed. last week, from the one vantage point, you could clearly see where the ice ended and where the rest of the un-iced lake began. This week, from the same vantage spot, my eyes could only see ice, with no visibly clear distinction between the ice and water!



Also last week, we saw what seemed like icebergs forming on the horizon. This week the iceberg creation was right by the shoreline in some parts! Incredible to see how such a huge body of water, metamorphisizes before your eyes, into an Antarctica landscape!



Later on Saturday afternoon, we drove around some neighborhoods, assessing the houses that are on the market in these areas. One house deserves another look, and the other one we have crossed off our list!

On Sunday, we headed for Church! After lunch, we took a drive to another town to see what the houses were like there. We found a very nice house, which was also affordable! Unfortuately, after some research on the schools in the area, we have decided that this is probably not the best place for Nathan to attend shcool :-( In the USA, if your child attends a public school (which are free), he/she HAS to attend the schools in the town that you live in. There are websites available that compare various school districts to one another, and rate them accordingly. Westlake, Bay Village, Avon Lake have some of the highest rated schools on the western side of Cleveland, and the area we looked at today didn't feature highly at all. So it seems like our house hunt must continue!!! Watch this space ;-)

Welcome to Cleveland, AK (Alaska)!!!

Our HIGH temperature for Sunday! (not taking wind chill into account)

About 8 years ago, I bought myself, what I thought would be the ultimate down sleeping bag in South Africa. This sleeping bag is rated to -15C! Well, if I had been outside with that sleeping bag (day or night) to protect me from the elements, I would most probably have died from hypothermia! Yes, it's that cold! When we woke up this morning, the temperature outside was -18C, but the wind chill dropped the mercury 10 degrees lower to -28C!!! It is reportedly the coldest weather Cleveland has seen in over a decade! Imagine a climate where the weather outside is colder than your freezer inside! Another scary statistic for you to digest, is that the difference between the temperature outside, and the temperature our apartment is, is approximately 50 degrees Celsius!!! But more about the temperature later...

The weekend got off to a good start on Friday, when my department held its first annual 10 pin bowling tournament. We all headed off to a bowling alley in Downtown Cleveland, where we had a couple of games lined up for us, with some excellent food to go along with it. I was proud of my achievements as I managed to turn in two 3 digit scores (albeit in the very low end - it was still 3 digits nonetheless!)

On Saturday I took my CR-V in for a service. After dropping my car off, we went to the Rocky River Nature Center. This is a fantastic place for small children to run around, as they have a number of child-friendly exhibits, and a huge fireplace in the middle of it! Nathan loved running around and playing with the various exhibits, while I took in the beauty of the Rocky River valley! The center over looked the Rocky River, which was frozen over in most places, and the only the fastest flowing sections of the river still in liquid form! Stunning! On our way back home, we drove past the Lake Erie shoreline, and Liesel and I saw icebergs that had formed on the horizon! That evening, we went to eat out at our local Max and Erma's restaurant. Nathan loved his macaroni and cheese, while Liesel and I enjoyed their hamburgers! For dessert, we order 6 chocolate chip cookies that are brought directly from the oven to your table! They were piping hot and still on the baking tray! There is no better way to end off a day that peaked at -10C, than to have steaming hot, deliciously soft cookies infused with molten chocolate, melt in your mouth! Life is good!

On Sunday, with the temperatures around -20C, we headed to church! Liesel has a bottle of water in her car, and since about 5 days ago, the water inside the bottle has been frozen solid! Only after driving around for a couple of hours, with the heater on, does it start to melt again! This afternoon, I took Nathan, and we headed down to the beach! We were both dressed warmly (I am even wearing long johns voluntarily) because we were going to see whether the lake is freezing yet. To our amazement, what used to be sand and the warm water that we used to swim in, has now been replaced by snow and snow dunes! Then the first 50 meters of water is frozen solid! It was unbelievable. Nathan and I actually walked down the steps onto the "beach" (read snow) and had a look at it close up! But after only spending about 2 minutes down there, I could feel the start of frostbite nipping on our open faces (the only parts of our body that were exposed to the weather)! So I quickly whisked Nathan back to the car where we could thaw out again in the heated air!

Below is a picture of Lake Erie in summer, just for comparison!