Snow? In Oakland? MooOOoo!

We got back yesterday from a quick pre-Christmas trip. As reported on another Oakland blog, City Homestead, it snowed here while we were gone. It's not that unusual for a little snowfall every couple of years here in the East Bay hills (we're at about 1200 feet), but our neighbor reported that the snow stuck around for a while, and that is unusual. They even had a couple of icy patches in their driveway. The Oakland Tribune site has pictures of kids building a snowman in Tilden Park in Berkeley. The good news is that we're getting snow in the mountains, too, where most of the state's water comes from in summer.

So far, we've missed all the excitement. We were in Michigan and Florida visiting family, and managed to miss the major storm that's hitting the Midwest. We did get to see my sister and her family in Michigan, including my nephew Jimmy,

fun with trains in Michigan

and some aunts, uncles and cousins, and the worst weather we faced was some freezing rain one night when we weren't going anywhere. It was hecka cold compared with what we're used to, though. I got a chance to show K the library where my great aunt worked, and we got a tour at the historical museum across the street. It's in a beautiful Victorian built in 1896, 20 years after Oakland's Camron-Stanford House. It's in even better shape than CS House because it only had a few owners, was never neglected as badly as CS House was after the city museum was moved out of it, and never had any structural changes made to it. We stayed at my sister's beautiful 1930's arts and crafts home. She and my brother-in-law and parents have been slowly restoring it to its former splendor, too. I'll post some pics of that later.

canoeing in Florida

After a quick stay in Michigan, we went to Florida to visit my parents. Not surprisingly, the weather was much nicer there. It did rain hard the first night, but other than that it was lovely. A visit to Fairchild Botanical Gardens, some canoeing, catching up, and of course lots of eating made for a delightful stay with them.

snow in LA

Our return trip took us through LAX. We obviously hadn't been paying attention to the national weather and news, because we were surprised at the amount of snow around LA. Snow isn't uncommon in the mountains there, but the sheer amount of it was. It was gorgeous, too.

As always, it was great to get home. Even if the weather isn't as nice as it was in Florida. The kitties were delighted to see us, too, although our neighbor took great care of them while we were gone (thanks, Michelle!).