Last summer, the girls loved driving themselves to the McDonalds in the University District to get chicken nuggets and french fries. This month McDonalds is offering a limited-time run of spicy chicken nuggets, which Anya is keen to try. We all decide to make a family dinner of it.
Since the restaurant is closed to dining, and we want to eat the food while it’s still hot, we pull over on a side street and eat dinner in the car. The verdict on spicy nuggets: not appreciably spicier than regular nuggets. The new “Mighty” sauce that’s on offer has some kick, though.
We re-enter a volunteer quarantine before Anya’s departure in two weeks. She’s scheduled to leave Seattle on the 17th, and we want to minimize the chance she could catch COVID and be prevented from joining her language program in Taiwan.
Our family has a new game of hiding a small pink octopus around the house. The octopus’ name is Strawberry, and we’ve had her for years. Recently she’s started popping up in unexpected places. Here she’s hiding on top of a ceiling fixture in the foyer.
The general shape of the game is that you want to hide Strawberry where no one will notice her for a day — but will notice her in 2–3 days. Alternatively, you want to hide her where she’ll give the person who finds her a surprise and a laugh. Example: Jan picks up his winter hat to discover Strawberry hiding underneath.
Jan points out to Angela that she looks like the Invisible Man. We observe that outfits that would have been out of the question a year ago no longer raise eyebrows.
Snow day! This is the first significant snowstorm we’ve had in a while. Liya, Angela, and Jan walk around the neighborhood, stopping to make snow angels, sled for a bit in Madison Beach, and generally marvel at the beautiful, transformed landscape.
The snow continues all night and into Sunday. The weather bureau will later announce that Seattle’s gotten more snow this weekend than any 2-day period in 50 years.
Moxie slowly explores the backyard. With each step, he’s briefly able to get up on top of the snow — before suddenly plunging up to his shoulder into it. He settles for sitting under one of our backyard benches.
Mojo wants to do whatever his brother is doing, but is averse to snow. He sits by the backdoor, safe under an awning on a patch of deck that has no snow on it.
Angela turns 50! Jan and the girls have spent weeks trying to think of some way to do the occasion justice, but we ultimately decide we’ll have to wait for better days for that. We end up with a nice but quiet birthday celebration at home.
Anya leaves for Taiwan. We take her to the airport for a flight to San Francisco, where she’ll meet up with the rest of language students. They’ll spend two nights at an airport hotel before flying on to Taipei.
The four of us head up to Mt. Baker for some skiing. It’s our first time visiting the area as a family. Mt. Baker is only 3 hours away, but that makes it too far for a day trip, and for longer trips we’ve usually driven a bit further up into Canada.
Mt. Baker has tons of snow, and we have a great day of skiing. Of the four of us, Liya is now the boldest skier, constantly looking out for double-black diamond runs called things like “The Chute” and marked with ⚠️ “Danger” signs.
On our second day, we discover a great, powder-filled bowl that leads down to a dramatic canyon following Razor Hone Creek.
Anya’s group makes to Taiwan, then begins two weeks of living in a quarantine hotel. (Anya’s pictured second from the left.)
Liya’s cross-country team has its first race of the season at Granite Falls. The cross-country team normally races in the fall, but the season was pushed back to the spring this year. Liya is the girl’s team captain this year, and this year the girls team has 16 members — the school’s largest girls team in years (possibly ever).