Winter Has Arrived

After a dry, warm December -finally some snow!

 Matt's "mini-man"

Winter Wonderland and Some Furry Friends

 It has been snowing off and on and then mostly on for the last few days and this morning we had about a foot of snow in our yard.  I think a lot more than that has fallen, but it has melted and settled a lot in between storms because it's really not that cold.  One of my friends was inviting all her kids and their families over today for Christmas dinner on their Christmas dishes. 

 For some reason the critters were out in force this afternoon. Besides our striped friend and the foxes, we saw pheasants, Canadian geese (who disappeared as soon as the foxes appeared) and some circling hawks.  We saw all of these in the 20 minutes or so that we were doing the dishes after our Sunday meal.  The water district pond in back of our pond is an attractive place for the Canadian geese in the spring, but I think it is obvious why we never saw any baby geese last year.  Too bad the geese didn't learn their lesson because at least two of them are back so far this year.  They are fun to watch, but I don't think it's a very safe place to nest.  The fox in the last picture is just staring at the pond.  Between the foxes and the skunks I'm sure any eggs don't stand a chance.  Ahh, nature.

Winter Again

Winter is back after several dry weeks and even a few days of spring fever inducing temperatures. Since it's still January and we do live in Utah, I won't complain. It actually was a gorgeous day of snowfall yesterday. And there was even a little blue sky that peeked through last evening. All in all, about the best kind of day you can hope for in January. Much better than the inversion.

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving weekend began with reports of a huge blizzard on the way, so I was very relieved when Camille arrived home before the snow started to fly on Tuesday. It was a true blizzard for a couple of hours, but it stopped before it became the killer blizzard the media reports made it seem like it was going to be. Still it was good to have everyone home.

It was too COLD to be good snowman snow, so Camille and Matt made snow angels, instead.

Grandpa and Grandpa O. spent the night with us Wednesday. Everyone got their creative juices flowing making cookie turkeys and Kevin made this cool snowman out of Buckyballs.

There's more than one thing you can do with candy corn!

Camille and Grandma displaying their handiwork.

Good enough to eat!

Dew Tour at Snowbasin

This weekend there was a fun event at Snowbasin. The Dew Tour was in town for one of its three winter stops. It's a ski and snowboarding competition kind of like a mini X-games. Snowbasin has been preparing for weeks building a giant half-pipe and lots of jumps at the base of the resort. Scott has been so psyched, especially when he learned that there would be lots of places to watch for free.

Scott and Andreas Wiig (snowboarder)

Half-pipe

I made the kids take cameras and they were very obedient and took lots of pictures. Some turned out pretty cool!

There was a big "Festival Village" at the base with tons of sponsors booths. The kids, especially Scott, because he was up there Friday afternoon and all day Saturday, came home with tons of free stuff. You'll notice that Scott's wearing a different hat in every picture. I think he got three different ones. They thought it was cool to rub shoulders with all the famous skiiers and snowboarders, too. They were all autographing posters and taking pictures with everyone and were relaxed and chatting with everyone. Scott, especially, was in heaven.

There was a cable (or internet -I'm not sure which) station called Fuel TV that had a hut set up where they would interview the athletes. They called it Dew Underground. They would let a few people in each time to watch and then ask their own questions. Scott and his friends went in to watch this snowboarder named Sage Kotsenberg be interviewed. Scott was able to ask a question. He asked the guy where his favorite place to snowboard is. He said Park City. (That's where he's from). The video wasn't posted on their website yet, but these photos were. As you can imagine Scott thought the whole weekend was pretty cool. He was a good boy, though, and watched the finals today on TV instead of going back up with some of his friends.

Wanna See Something Gross?

These pictures don't do justice to the pool of haze that has filled the valley, but we've got a classic January inversion going on. It just gets worse as the day goes on...

morning...

afternoon...

evening.

All we need is a little storm. Is that too much to ask for in January?
*cough, cough*

White Christmas

Finally, last Saturday and Sunday we got a real snowstorm here in Ogden. Before that it had only been a few inches here and there, but now we have over a foot of the white stuff. It looks like Christmas!

I love how clear the air is after a storm. This is a pretty sunrise a day or two after the storm. Now, several days later, it looks nothing like this. The valley is full of haze again. We need another storm!

It's pretty at dusk, too, when the air is clear, although you can see a little haze beginning over the lake.

Our Christmas lights look much better in the snow!

Come on in!

Catching up - January 2009

We went to Grandma and Grandpa's cabin for Martin Luther King Day since the kids were out of school. Niel and Amy's family was there and Scott's friend, Brandon came along. It looks like he's wondering what he got himself into. It was a fun weekend.

Camille gave Grandpa a mustache and glasses as part of a game we were playing. He's such a good sport!

Scott and Brandon helped Grandpa make an igloo. It's quite a process, but Grandpa is an expert. This is the second one he's made this year.

Scott cutting blocks out of the packed down and frozen snow






Scott and Brandon slept in the igloo that Grandpa had made a couple of weeks earlier. Snow had fallen and filled in all the cracks between the blocks. Even though it was a cold night they said they were toasty warm.



The kids had fun playing in the snow the next day. It was a beautiful, sunny day and everything was so pretty we hated to leave and come home to the winter inversion in the valley.