Those lacy snowflakes and fluffy drifts are just memories now, and maybe not the best ones.
Snow left work schedules in shambles. Students became slackers. Driving was harrowing. The unlucky among us dealt with power outages, or damaged homes or cars.
With all that going on, it was heartening to see that a weather “emergency” is what you make it. To see that, just look at snow photos contributed by readers to our Herald website.
There are hundreds of pictures — snowmen and snow angels, sleds and dogs, branches and buildings covered in white.
And then there’s the Mattern family. Their picture, of an igloo with four underdressed children on top, doesn’t tell the whole story.
“The kids and their dad stayed the night in the igloo,” said Clay Mattern, of Monroe. His 9-year-old son, Caleb, was one of the hardy sleepers. “They were warm — they said,” he added.
Mattern’s brother, D.J. Mattern, built the igloo at his house in Monroe and stayed overnight inside it. He lives across town from Clay. He was helped by his three children and their cousin Caleb.
“They worked hard for two days on that,” said Denise Mattern, D.J.’s wife. “My husband likes to do fun stuff like that. And it gets the kids out of the house. They loved it,” she said.
The kids — 6-year-old Sam Mattern, his brother Colby, 9, sister Cierra, 13, and cousin Caleb — posed on top of the igloo in swimsuits. Why not?
For sleeping, Denise Mattern said, they put down a layer of straw on the snowy floor and then blankets and sleeping bags.
“They said they were hot, all night,” she said. “When I crawled in there and laid down, it was warm.”
Although Denise Mattern said the igloo could easily sleep six people, she passed on the chance to stay out there all night. Smart mom, she spent Tuesday night in the house with Cierra and her daughter’s friend.
The igloo was built of blocks made by filling plastic storage bins with snow. “They filled those and stacked them, stuffing snow in between,” Denise Mattern said. Her husband didn’t begin to slope the roofline in until the igloo was quite high. “He’s 6 feet tall and can stand up inside,” she said.
They knew the fun couldn’t last, but Denise Mattern expects the igloo will “be like snowmen, one of the last things to melt.”
In Snohomish, 29-year-old Brian Collins built an igloo, too.
“He got bored with that,” said Nancy Collins, Brian’s mother, who also contributed a photo to HeraldNet.
That picture shows Brian, a 2000 graduate of Snohomish High School, wearing a diver’s mask and popping up through the ice in his parents’ swimming pool.
“He’s always doing something crazy like that,” Nancy Collins said. “Brian had a dry suit and a tank, his friend just had a wetsuit,” she said. Her son, who was captain of the dive team on his high school swim team, took a very short dip Tuesday night.
It’s not his first try at snow antics. “One year, he took an old door we were getting rid of, built a ramp and was snowboarding off the roof, down to the pump house, then to the diving board and into the lower back yard,” Nancy Collins said. Don’t try that at home.
Her son works at a bike shop and is training for a triathlon, she said.
The family dives together, off Edmonds, Mukilteo and the San Juan Islands. They also have a healthy respect for the dangers of the elements.
Nancy Collins’ husband is Mark Collins, fire chief with Snohomish Fire &Rescue.
“My husband said the snow can be an inconvenience or it can be an emergency, depending on how well prepared you are,” she said.
Inconvenient for some, emergency for others, snow brought out the zany side in a few of our intrepid neighbors.
Julie Muhlstein: 425-339-3460, muhlstein@heraldnet.com.
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