When it Rains, It Pours

With the advent of winter and sunset by 5pm, I'm slowly having to adjust to living in a northern climate as well as find a way to welcome the gray skies and puddled sidewalks. Since I spent the summer in a drought and didn't see a drop of rain for four consecutive months, the rain is still a welcome friend - which is fortunate since I get to spend the next 6-8 months with rain clouds as a constant companion. From what the natives tell me, their summer came late this year, but fortunately for me, it's meant that fall has been graceful and uncommonly beautiful. This has meant plenty of sunny days to break up the rain and warmer temperatures than they're used to for this time of year. As someone who is learning the ropes in a new place and missing the sunniness of my hometown, these are things that I have been exceedingly thankful for, as the weather seems to be showing me grace by helping me adjust slowly rather than having to quit the sun cold turkey.

On Friday, however, the rains hit in full force. As it was Veterans Day, the schools out here actually had a vacation day - so we had made plans to take full advantage of this day off by playing touch football on campus with students. (We made it touch instead of tackle so the girls would come! Staci, Sydney, Kati and Allison were brave enough to come out and play with the boys!) In corresponding with the date - 11/11/11 - we had kickoff at 11:11:11 a.m. Right about the same time the rain began.

We played for about an hour and a half in the pouring rain. It was absolutely the most fun that I've had in awhile, and reminded me a lot of the snow football nights we had at OU during college. When the raindrops began to fall, we all seemed to make a sort of silent agreement that we were going to play on and resigned ourselves to the fact that we'd be soaked by the end. Usually the rain in Seattle settles for a light drizzle, but about halfway in we were caught in an absolute downpour. With resiliency and lightheartedness at the fact we could hardly throw or catch the ball due to slipperiness, and running in the mud was basically out of the question without biting the dust, we made it through what felt like four quarters before retiring to a warm lunch at Chipotle. Here's a picture of the 17 or so of us that battled it out despite the conditions and had an absolute blast doing it.

This picture doesn't quite do justice to how soaked and muddy we all were, or to how soaked and muddy the field was, but hopefully it gives you the idea.

It's been such a blast getting to know these students and do fun things with them. More stories soon!