Love Them!

Love Them!

Yeah, you're probably thinking of all the possible things that I could love....

like, God, or my family, my furry children....

actually, I love all those things, but really, I love Storms!

I love rain storms, windy storms, lightning storms but I really, really love 

Snow Storms! They are so exciting!

 Jasper loves the snow too! Maybe not the actual storm but he loves the end product of a snow storm.

He was so busy catching snow thrown from the snowblower that he missed his morning round up with the goats. So he is watching Victoria from the border. 

Jasper prefers the snow. He will want to spend all his time out doors playing with ice, plowing into a snow bank, running, kicking up the powdery snow, laying in it.

I think back at our itsy bitsy teeny weeny little back yard that the kids and I had great adventures in long ago and step out my back door now and experience this blessed space that God has handed us.

 I can breathe here. 

Snowshoeing Limber Pine

Kaleb, Jared and Kirk took the scouts up to Limber Pine in the Canyon for their annual snow camping trip. When they got back and were telling me the awesome time they had, I told Kaleb I wanted him to show me where they camped. So we planned for Friday afternoon when he got out of School, Kirk and I would be ready! The plan was to snow shoe in to the campsite making a total of  only 2 1/4 miles, which is actually a long way on snow shoes! It took us two hours and got back to the van just as it was getting dark.

 The snow was over 4 feet deep in places. If we weren't wearing snow shoes we would have sunk up to our thighs! The restroom roof looks like a mushroom.

 Kaleb led the way which made it much easier for the rest of us. We basically marched the entire way because you have to lift your leg up over the hole you just made with the snow shoe. The wind was blowing and made the trees creek. It was eerily awesome!

 This is the top edge of the cornice where they dug into it to make their snow shelters. The wind was blowing here and covering up the trail almost instantly. It was beautiful.

 Kaleb was digging out the entrance to his snow cave. It was snowing heavily at this point. I love being out in a snow storm.

I crawled into Kaleb's snow shelter. I always thought that I would be too claustrophobic but it was actually quite nice. It was very quiet and believe it or not, but it was warm in there. I guess with your face being in the entrance, then you would feel closed in. It was roomy. The ceiling was all iced over. Kirk crawled into Jared's Cave that he dug out. His was extra long. Kirk said that we both could have fit in there it was that wide.

 It was just so pretty.
I really needed to get outside after a crazy week. So it made a perfect, strenuous outing. 

 There was only a slight indication of where the actual trail was. Kaleb kept checking his GPS on his watch to see if we were even close. He knew that if we kept traveling north that we would run into the road. He got us back on the trail twice after losing it a couple times. I fell a few times, one of the times, my entire arm sunk in to my shoulder. 

We caught a glimpse of Bear Lake. 

It looks so pretty in the winter. 

So peaceful....so quiet.....

More Skiing!

Excuse me....Snowboarding.....

I guess Snowboarders make it very clear that they are not skiing!

The way I look at it, anyone who is sliding down the face of a hill in any sort of manner, in control or out of control is "skiing". We have managed to get quite a few trips in this year. Our whole family even managed to get in some down hill skiing. I hadn't done it in 30 years and it was like riding a bike. Daphne even managed quite well. This particular day that the picture was taken, it literally snowed ALL day. The powder was up to your thighs and was very wet. Everyone came in drenched. The area around the fireplaces in the lodge were strung with wet jackets, hats, gloves, pants....  Several times there was almost no visibility. Victoria got left behind and it took her almost two hours to make it down the mountain from the top. I was getting a little nervous when no one had seen her for quite some time. She made it down in one piece, just a little frustrated. Which improved with her board being waxed. We learned that there are several types of waxes depending on the snow condition. In this case, it was very wet and the snow was sticking to the bottom, which is not fun at all. Either way, it was a great day spending it with friends and "skiing"!

Stained Glass Window

Now that we are down to just Victoria in school, I feel like we don't post much school stuff anymore. I am missing all those little kid things we did in homeschooling which is why I gave her the project assignment to design and create a stained glass window out of tissue paper for our Medieval History lesson. We have done this project in the past but when you present the assignment to a little kid versus a 14 year old, it is an amazing contrast. She started out on a computer program "Mischief" and created all the line work. Then she had her Dad print it out on a big printer because in this house you can't do anything small. This is on black poster board from the dollar store. Then she cut it all out with a blade and glued sheets of tissue paper on the back. I love, love, love how it turned out. She created two different shades of green by layering yellow and green and then green over green.

Beautiful!

Photography Class

Finally!

Daphne and I are taking a Photography Class at the Technical College.

I have been taking pictures for years and even did an online course with Kaleb in High School and STILL didn't understand how to use my camera the right way. ISO, F-Stop, Apeture.....Sigh....

IF you were bleeding to death, I might be able to save your life, but don't ask me to take a decent picture of you dying. It wouldn't come out right.

It's been hard fitting it in which is why I hadn't done it earlier. 

It is all making sense and a lot of fun.

I wish I could have done it when the kids were little. 

Anyway, the class is informative and very entertaining.

The instructor is very hyperactive and all over the place which keeps me engaged.

Hopefully the pictures that I take with the Nikon will be an improvement. I'll need a better phone with camera if I am going to take better pictures with my phone. That's next.

Yurt Trip

Jared, Kaleb and Michael are doing an awesome job of giving these boys good life experiences. They have quite a bit of fun with the Dad's too, building relationships. Kaleb cracks me up. His hair is all crazy, he's got his lime green sunglasses on and a hawiian button down shirt. 

I'm proud of these guys who are sticking around to give back to the Troop that gave them so much.

The Big Guy

I went to sit down on the couch and guess who jumped up before me and plopped into the spot I was going to sit. Jasper is quite the character. He's big enough that I just continued to sit down on him. He did move after a few seconds.

Deer

I know they say that Deer are like overgrown rats...they get into everything, but I still love to see them. We were driving through some fields by our house at dusk and saw 18 deer in someone's front yard. Hopefully these are the winter deer that will head back into the mountains in the Spring. We have neighborhood herds that stay year round that Animal Control are trying to take care of so they aren't causing problems in everyone's garden this summer. I hate to be that way but when you discover that your huge head of cabbage has a bite taken out of it, it's hard to like them at that moment.  They are very peaceful and quiet. During the winter we will have foot prints right up to our winter that you can see in the snow. It's as if they walked up to the window and looked in.

Further down the road we came across two bucks deciding if they wanted to cross the road. Of course it stopped right in front of us....and gave us the....deer in the headlights, look.