Fargo: Always a Surprise!

You would think that after almost four years of living in Fargo we would find there aren't many surprises left for us.  Think again, it seems, as Fargo seems to be a host to many strange phenomena.  Invariably most of these surprises are accompanied by extreme cold.

 Just this month, what we thought was another broken dishwasher turned out to be a frozen one.  After getting a repairman in to assess the problem we were told that our dishwasher was not broken at all.  Maybe our builder wasn't a Fargo native.  (No, he probably was.  What kind of outsider would move here?)  Perhaps he was just a bit lazy in his design then because it seems that having an appliance on an external wall can cause the pipes to freeze.  Even when the interior of the house is a balmy 72 degrees.

Don't tell Little R that the dishwasher wasn't broken after she scrubbed all those sippy cups for us!

This winter has been extra cold these past few weeks.  (Or as native Fargoans like to say "average.")  Which has led to the condensation on our windows to freeze.  This wouldn't be a problem if we could just stop breathing inside of our airtight house.  Since we can't seem to manage that we just get a thick layer of snow and ice on the inside windows that we have to chip and blow dry off if it bothers us.  That, or wait until spring when all of the windows will puddle.

Even Lola and Charlie are a bit nervous about the ice that is starting to form behind them.

Of course, there are some things that we've known for quite some time.  It didn't take long to figure out that the sunnier the day the colder it would become.  Nothing makes us happier than a grey, snowy day since it might mean that we can go outside without these expressions:

This must have been a particularly cold day since you can see we practically needed sunscreen it was so bright out.