Cold? Nah...

I always love doing this little science trick on a cold day. We hit -31 here last night. Notice how loud the snow crunches under my feet - and if you listen carefully, you can hear the water expand into steam!



It wasn't brutally cold on Sunday, so we took the kids outside for a little while. Alison wanted to shield her eyes from the sun, and Eli is just a little copycat.



Cartoon time on the couch.



Clementines are on sale again - they make a great snack and a great smile, too.

Perigee Moon

It's finally above zero and not snowing! With the full moon tonight, I decided to sneak out and do some snowshoeing tonight. I picked Ryan up at about 7 o'clock and we headed for Hamilton Wills Wildlife Management Area. It's about 30ish miles outside of Fargo and has some nice hills and river bottoms to explore. It was largely overcast tonight, but the moon peeked through a few times and made a brilliant landscape.

Casting shadows under the moon:


The old farmstead. It was absolutely calm, with an owl hooting in the background - things that aren't captured with a picture.


Ryan heading back through the woods. 2 second exposure with a second curtain flash.


And here I come!

Snowing again!

We closed out December by setting a record - 33 point something or other inches of snow for the month. We're starting January off with another snowstorm. This time the weather guy is predicting somewhere between zero and twelve inches. But the forecast was only a 70% chance, so we're nearly three quarters certain that we might get something between nothing and a record. I believe the professional term for that is "guessing". Oh well - it gives a fresh coat of snow for the kids to play in.



Alison had her first skating lesson today. She learned how to fall down and get back up, and a little bit of marching and gliding.

Grandma and Grandpa were up for the week - they came on Monday just ahead of one storm, and left Friday, just ahead of the next storm. We had a pretty quiet New Years Eve, and we almost stayed awake all the way to midnight!