According to the Kennewick General Hospital website:

The name Kennewick is derived from "kin-i-wack," an Indian name meaning "grassy place." Kennewick was first home to the Chemnapam Indians who called it "winter haven"

Compared to the surrounding regions, its low elevation (about 400' according to www.city-data.com), low precipitation (about 7" per year) and proximity to the flowing Columbia River produce much milder winters than midwestern areas at the same latitude (not much different than Fargo, SD, for example). Geese from the far north often winter near the river, taking over the football field at Hanford HS and other places. Some winters have no snow at all, and others have a little bit that melts almost as soon as it hits the dry ground. Sometimes we will go to the parking lot by the ice rink/hockey arena to climb on their piles of Zamboni scrapings and throw ice balls.

So when there was a little bit on the ground after Christmas, 2003, it was just forward thinking that we asked our next-door neighbors if we could take a few loads of their driveway snow they had swept off, so that our kids could play with it. But shortly afterward there was more, so that the boys sometimes wouldn't even go out when they saw it falling. When school vacation was over, radio messages stating "two-hour bus delay for Kennewick School District" were soon followed by school day cancellation notices. Because more days were cancelled than optional makeup days were in the school schedule, the school year had to be extended at the end of spring. The cities also had to go way over budget for snow removal just to keep the main arteries clear. The plows did come up our street one time, but the snow returned again afterward. No stores could keep snow shovels of any kind in stock; fortunately we had an old metal shovel that wasn't as wide but was sturdier than most to handle the foot-thick fluff that most years would have been dealt with by patio broom.

A few things we saw that would not normally be seen in Kennewick:
- snowmobile cruising the streets
- bird footprints everywhere
- sleds being towed by pickup down the street
- glow of buried Christmas and yard lights
- Gilbert helping a neighbor get her car moving out of a pile of snow
- a neighbor helping Gilbert get his car moving from a particularly icy spot in the street

Some Images

Click for larger image	Dec 26, 2004 Josiah had designated the day after Christmas as "Yo-ho-ho Day" and some other kids came to show their new gifts. It was pleasant and sunny and they took some time out in the yard.
Click for larger image	Dec 28, 2004 Josiah had designated the day after "Yo-ho-ho Day" to be "Ho-ho-ho Day, but it turned out to be "Sno-ho-ho Day" and he was the first to find that the snow was wet enough to roll into big balls. But the next day, most of the ground snow had melted and the snowman was lucky to have been built in the shade of the hedges.
Click for larger image	Dec 29, 2004 Monday the 29th turned out to be a good snow day and the green patches were quickly whitewashed again. Josiah didn't need any neighbor's snow to fortify the front yard.
Click for larger image	Dec 29, 2004 It may have taken a bit of time, but Andrew finally found out what 3 year olds were supposed to do with snow.
Click for larger image	Jan 3, 2004 The snow stayed on the ground and occasionally kept increasing through the New Year. Here, a ruddy-cheeked Lego master helps Alpha Team establish an ice base on the picnic table. No, the skis on Lego people don't really work.
Click for larger image	Jan 13, 2004 School reopened on Monday the 5th despite record cold temperatures hovering around zero F. The next day, snow caused a delay, then the last three days of school were cancelled. When the next week rolled around, snow had lost its novelty, but we were still checking the icicles to see whether they could reach the ground without breaking from their own weight.
Click for larger image	Jan 24, 2004 The snow gradually receded later in the month, although Gilbert had to dig out the street to have enough parking spaces for visitors on Chinese New Year's. When the guests left, the boys seemed to realize this was the snow season's last hurrah and dug what was left of the mound that had been the result of clearing the driveway the previous week..

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