Alana's Mission Call - Behind the Scenes

Its been over a month since Alana received her mission call. She had a great video on her website covering her opening the letter. Check it out here.

Well here are some behind the scene photos.

Alana was sick with the flu when the call arrived.   Here she is on a improvised conference call talking to Angie on one phone and Erika on the other phone.

We gathered together to open the call.   We coordinated it so that Erika and Angie and Mike and Tyken and Brylie could be online.

We set two computers for video conferencing.

One was to Hawaii

(Notice the headlamp used to illuminate Alana).

The other one was to Grandma & Grandpa T. in Picture Butte

We also had Grandma A. on the phone.

You can see Judy holding the phone so Grandma A. could hear.

It was kind of neat that we could get so many people watching or listening live.

Calgary Weather Report

I have a lot of blog updates I'd like to do.   I sat down to start and turned on the TV.   Johnny Tsunami is on and when Johnny moves from the North Shore of Oahu to Vermont I thought of all of you coming home to Calgary.

For those of you who aren't familiar with the movie its about a kid (Johnny) from the North Shore who loves to surf.   His dad gets a job in Vermont and they move there in the winter.   The Vermont scenes were actually filmed in Utah and his "Vermont" house is about a block away from Wilma and Dave's place in SLC.  And of course Angie and Mike and family and Erika live on the North Shore.

Anyways,  the point of this post is to warn Candi and Alana of what is happening back in Calgary.

The good news is the forecast for the end of the week when the rest of you arrive.  It will be above freezing.    And the long term forecast if for milder weather (milder by Calgary standards of course).

Was it a Blizzard?

I've been round these parts most of my 50 years and until this weekend I didn't know that there was a difference between a winter storm and a blizzard.

It all came up because we were watching the weather forecast on TV and most of the province had a winter storm warning but only parts of the province had a blizzard warning. Calgary was not in the blizzard warning area. I looked out the window and it looked like a blizzard to me.

However I was wrong. Our weather only qualified as a winter storm. Here's how Environment Canada defines the 2 warning.

Winter Storm Warning

Winter Storm Warnings are issued where there is a combination of weather elements that produce the weather related hazard.

Winter Storm Warnings are issued when:

• Some type of precipitation is expected to occur and,
• One winter warning criterion (snowfall, wind, wind chill, freezing rain) is met or expected to be met and,
• Criterion for another winter warning type is approached or exceeded (snowfall, wind, temperature etc).

Blizzard Warning

Blizzard warnings are issued when all of the following conditions are expected to last 4 hours or more south of the Arctic tree line and 6 hours or more north of the Arctic tree line:

• Temperatures colder than 0°C and windchill of colder than -25°C.
• Widespread reduction of visibility to less than 1 km due to snow and/or blowing snow.
• Sustained wind speeds or gusts of 40 km/h or more.

Technically we only had a winter storm because it wasn't cold enough to qualify for a blizzard. While the temperature qualified at around -5 C but we only had a wind chill of around -20. (sounds funny - or sad - to have "only" and "-20" in the same sentence)

So a blizzard is a winter storm but a winter storm is not necessarily a blizzard (but it can be). Did you follow that?

I wonder how many of my childhood memories of blizzards need to be altered because they were in fact only winter storms.

Here's some pictures of our "winter storm" taken Saturday morning when we went outside.

Around 7 am we drove Mike to the train station so he could go write his CFA exam. It was a miracle that we got him there. The roads in the neighborhood where drifted over in parts. Just before we left a neighbor from across the street got stuck in front of his house in his 4 wheel drive. I went over and helped push him out. Good thing he went first because he made a trail for me to follow out. But coming back we weren't so lucky. We got stuck a block from home. It took a while to dig ourselves out.

I shovelled snow for a couple hours. A snow blower would have been nice.

We did go out later and managed to get to Jamie' basketball game. Once you got to the main roads the driving was okay because snow plows had been through. But getting to the main road from our place was tricky. We passed many stuck vehicles. My favorites are the city buses that somehow manage to go sideways and block both lanes of traffic. Jamie's team won and Jamie had a good game.

We were supposed to have our Ward Christmas party today but we postponed it because there were people who couldn't get out of their neighborhoods.

Mike thinks he did okay on his exam. He finds out the results in January. We'll keep our fingers crossed for him.

He can't wait to get back to Hawaii.

And while we are enjoying our winter storm Alana, Candi, Erika, Angie, Brylie and Tyken are enjoying the big island of Hawaii.

Remind me why I want to live here.

Calgary was hit with a blizzard this morning. Its been blowing and snowing all day. Its also the morning that Mike arrived from Hawaii. He's here to take the CFA (Chartered Financial Analyst) exam. And while he is here, Candi and Alana are in Hawaii with Erika, Angie, Brylie and Tyken.

Jenelle and I went to pick him up at the airport.

He was easy to spot. The only one wearing shorts today.

We almost lost Jenelle to the hippo while waiting for the luggage.

Good thing Mike was there to save her.

The weather in November was so nice in Calgary. Then it snowed the day Candi went to Hawaii. It snowed again the day Alana went to Hawaii and now it snows the day Mike comes here.

What are Mike's thoughts?

Remind me again why I want to move here.

Its been snowing all day. We have a drift about 4 feet high on our front sidewalk.

You might be able to see it in this picture.

Tonight we went to Jamie's basketball game. Churchill lost by 2 points. We almost didn't make it home because of all of the snow.

Here's what we saw when we opened the back door this evening.

Wish we were in Kona with the rest of the family.