Break Up

Warmer weather has finally arrived! I have heard that the temperatures in Seattle have still been in the high 40s to low 50s, and people are starting to get a little cranky with the "cold" weather. Well, it has been in the upper 30s and low 40s here, and for us this is the warm weather that everyone has been waiting for. Kids are running around in t-shirts and all of the hats and gloves have been put away for the year. I never thought that 40 degrees could feel so warm. However, with this warmer weather comes the melt, also known as "break up." The ice has not started to break yet, but all of the snow has pretty much melted. Here is what things are looking like around town:

This is one of the many "puddles." Although, they are more like ponds. Kids have actually brought out small rafts and oars and floated on the puddles.

There are water pumps set up all around town pumping the water from the huge puddles and sending it out to the ice on the ocean.

Although the ice has not broken yet, there is a lot of water on top of it from all of the snow that has melted. You can see the water on top in this picture:

Small cracks in the ice have started to form, which means that the actual break up is not far away. You can see a crack at the bottom of this picture:

Although we are very excited to get home, the one thing we are sad to miss is the breaking of the ice. From what we have heard, it is quite an amazing thing. People have told us that you can hear the sound of the ice when it's breaking off from miles away. Pretty amazing!