Gone fishing. We had a neighborhood/church snowman building contest. We won best angling snow-fisherman. Or something like that. I don't know if you can see it in this shot, but Husband even sculpted a fish on the line.
One fine snow day. Jack would have stayed outside forever. So glad our boy loves snow as much as we do.
We have had up to 12 deer in our backyard at a time this past winter. What can I say? They like our grass.
Jack's first ski day at Alta! My youngest brother came down over Presidents' Day so the three of us went skiing whilst everyone else worked. Gavin went on the more serious slopes. Jack stood on my skis while we shushed down the bunny slope. He did great & had so much fun. Next year, we'll have to find him his own skis. And I had better get myself in better shape! I am so glad no one had a video of this little adventure. I revisited my awkward days from teenagehood. Trust me, they weren't pretty.
After one run, I was beaten by the rope tow. Jack spent the rest of the time "sledding" down a little hill waiting for Gavin. {click above} There were quite a few skiers who stopped just to watch my boy. He isn't giggling in this one, but I am sure you can imagine.
Starting in late fall and now into winter (yes, I know it is March) this bird has landed on the railing of our deck and in this shot, our tree. He is huge! We would love to find out what he is. Any ideas?
How did we get all this lovely snow? Not in light flurries, I will tell you. We had a wicked blizzard a few weeks back. I called Husband to let him know the snow was coming ... and to get his handsome self up the hill before the road became impassable for his poor rear-wheel drive truck. Unfortunately for him (and by extension, me) he couldn't get off work until the blizzard had been in full swing for over an hour. He called me from the 10% grade, about half way up the north side of our mountain to say the rear-wheel-drive truck wasn't going to make it this time. He was going to try to head back down the mountain and could I meet him at our grocery store at the bottom. I got off the phone, packed up Jack and our things — extra water, snacks etc. just in case — and headed out into the dark in our all-wheel-drive car to "rescue Daddy." {Side note: Jack has really taken to this show called Super Why. Now, every time we leave the house, he yells "to the rescue!" So. Dang. Cute.}
We have two ways to get to our house, the north and the south side of our mountain. The north side is much steeper and longer with fierce winds, but the south side requires driving around rather over. A little out of the way, but usually the safer choice. Not that day. I started down the south side only to find myself in high winds blowing snow into 12 inch drifts covering the road. No street lights along the mountain road either so I drove by our GPS. And by faith. And prayer. And whistling to keep me calm as we slid around the road. We nearly hit a median due to the low visibility, but twenty minutes later, I made it to the main highway. The light had no power, but it appeared that the drivers were behaving themselves and taking turns nicely at the then four-way-stop. Lucky for my outbound lane, and unlucky for the inbound lane, there was lots of traffic to light the way. Traffic stopped several times to let super strong wind gusts/snow drifts to pass, but ultimately, by the time thirty more minutes passed, we made it to the freeway. Home free! We could go all of 35 on the freeway around the mountain. Large snowflakes and a head wind made it seem a bit like driving in place, but at least I could follow the car in front of me and there wasn't deep snow to deal with.
How was Jack during all this? Asleep. Thank heavens. We picked up Husband, I handed him the keys, breathed a huge sigh of relief and he drove home on a freshly plowed north side. Bless the snow plow boys!
The moral of this story? The path that may seem of least resistance may be the most difficult of all. That said, it was a bit of a spiritual experience for me... a kind of microcosm of life all rolled into an hour and a half rescue.
{Another side note: No, this is not our house. I was not about to brave the elements just to get a shot of our flocked abode so I took this from the comfort of our own home after our little escapade. Yes, this is at night. Weird what happens when the blizzard clears. Sort of.}
the end.
