What have we been up to?

A little of this and a little of that...These are some pictures from a while back.  The first two are from our visit up to Frisco, CO to check out Grandma Cindy and Grandpa Bart's new house.  It was so beautiful to be up in the mountains with a fresh blanket of snow.

 Here are a few from our neighbor Bob's annual work Christmas party.  Bob plays Santa for the party so he invites us to come.  This year Tilly figured out that Santa was Bob.  She has always wondered why we never see him at his own party.  It was a pretty cute moment when she realized the truth!

 Isa choir class had a performance at the school of all the songs they have worked on during the semester.  A little pre-performance picture and an action shot!

 Josie was in the 4th & 5th Grad Choir at LES.  They sang in downtown Louisville before the annual Parade of Lights.  Josie is the one in the front row with the pink jacket (standing next to two of the shortest kids in 4th grade).  After the choir sang, we got to our spots and watched the parade.  The big man himself even showed up at the end on a firetruck!

Rain!

Okay, so its not as exciting as 20" of snow, but I'm still happy. This is only our third day of rain since November. We've been averaging one rainy day each month. So I guess this is our 5th day of rain since October. Not a lot of precipitation.

This winter has really been lovely. Lots of blue sky and warm temps. Better than summer. But we need the rain.

The gardens are even happier than I am.

Let it melt, let it melt, let it melt...

After it was all said and done, we got 20.2" of snow. That's a lot of snow. It has been nothing but blue skies and melting snow ever since. It's not melting too quickly because it is still only around 35 degrees.

We went sledding today. This is the same hill where we went on the slip-n-slide. Ahhhhh, I wish it were that warm again. Soon enough we will be reminiscing about the winter and how much fun sledding was :)

Brrrrrrrrr

It's a little cold here these days. Although I was just saying last Friday how hot it was running outside in shorts and a t-shirt. Crazy Colorado winters...I love them. At least you know you aren't going to get cold/gray/gloom for 4 months straight. Mother Nature teases you a little with a gorgeous day thrown in every now and then. Reminding you of what is to come.

It was so cold the last two days that the girls' school was canceled. Can you believe that, canceled on account of cold. Back in my day..............I do remember one day in Wyoming when it got to -65 with the wind chill, I am pretty sure I didn't go to any classes that day. Today in Wyoming it was -44 with the wind chill and they had school! Anyway, they will be back at school tomorrow ready to learn, learn, learn...or play, play, play...or talk, talk, talk...or whatever they do all day at school. Poor Tilly only gets one day of school this week. She doesn't have school on Mondays and the pre-school is off Friday. She is the only one who has been really upset (besides me) about the closure. The other kids were dancing and hollering while poor Tilly was crying.

This was the temp this morning in the kitchen. The top was the outside temp, the bottom the inside temp.

Looking out the kitchen window. Don't worry, this is the only window that looked like this. It is a Garden Window and has really thin glass. We keep the blinds closed to all that cold doesn't come in to the kitchen too much.

We made crepes with raspberry jelly, fresh lemon, honey, sugar and cinnamon sugar (not all on the same crepe)...

...and ate them in front of the fire.

Snow - day one

While we were in Gold Country we decided to drive up into the Sierra Nevada Mountains just a bit to see if we could get into some snow. We weren't sure if we'd see any more along the drive or while in OR. We found some, this day and a few days after this and then again on the drive home.

We went to Calaveras Big Trees State Park, which was mostly closed (or not plowed) but we found plenty to do just beyond the parking lot. Check out how high that snowplowed pile is behind Henry. The bathrooms had heaters!

Lucy had fun for a while, but she got chilly toes so she and I went back to the van. Yeah, I know what you're thinking, poor Wendy had to have her 'snow time' cut short. NOPE, she and I do well in cold weather together.

Mae loved the snow. She jumped in many times.

Look at all the snow on the trees behind them. It snowed a lot the night before.
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Hope you're staying warm wherever you are. It was 77 here today, nice.

Sledding...It's all fun until someone gets hurt.

This time it was Isabel. We were having a great time enjoying the hill by the Louisville Rec Center as you can see from the pictures and this video.

If you watch the video again you see there is a little bump at the bottom of the hill. When you hit that bump (which is mostly hard packed snow over cement) going fast with your eye and shoulder, it really hurts. Not sure if you can see it in this picture but Izzy has a pretty good shiner under her left eye. She also has a nice size bruise and scrape on her shoulder. After a few minutes of rest and calming down she was about ready to try it again until I said it was time to go home. No more ER visits while Chance is out of town for me thank you very much!

Ice Skating

The other day we went over to our friends house to go ice skating. Yes, they have an ice rink in their back yard. These are the same people that created the super slip-n-slide. It was great. There were about 8-10 1st graders that came over that night to skate as well. They do it right there: fire pit, hot chocolate, beer, cookies, a wall full of skates that people have left for others. It was a lot of fun. Josie has been asking me every hour since then if we can go back. I also put a video up on youtube if you are interested.

Ummm, its a little cold here, too......

Can you see that? Its frost. Two nights in a row. Don't worry, my baby plants are inside.The view from inside the car in the morning. We had to wait a whole 4 minutes for the windshield to defrost yesterday.
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So, Jil. I hear you. How long do we have to put up with this?
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p.s. Our high is only 58 today. How will we survive?

If you don't like the weather...

...how long do I have to wait for it to change? They always say wait 5 minutes but I have been waiting for about a week now and it isn't changing much. Well I guess it changed a little, it was 11 yesterday and today it is -3.

I keep thinking this is what it was like when I was in college in Laramie but then I just heard from my friend who still lives in Laramie and she said it was -8 with a wind chill of...get this... -33! Now that's cold! Here are a couple of photos of the bravest people in Louisville, the ones who decided to walk to school today. Notice Josie is not in that picture? She is smart and got a ride with the neighbors. Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

Ice Skating

Our local ice rink opened last week and we took advantage of it. It was a nice afternoon/evening and the girls had a blast. They have asked me everyday since if we can go ice skating. Today the high temperature was 22 with a low of about 10, not good skating/supervising weather if you ask me.