Winter Wonderland

Captured the above photo in the a.m. when I let the dog out the back door to do his thing ... These trees surround our property and provide a lot of much needed shade in the summer, but can be treacherous when we get snow. One of the branches on a tree at the side of the house (the neighbor's side of the fence) got too heavy with the snow and broke off, coming through our tile roof. Not impressed! This is the very same tree we offered to go halfers with our neighbor on, last summer, if they would cut it down. They decided to just top it and have a few branches taken off -- bad decision! Hubby and another neighbor were up on the roof replacing cracked tiles, and then 'jury-rigged' an A-frame to protect the peak, where several more tiles were destroyed. Thankfully, the branch only went through to the attic, and not through the laundry room ceiling, where my brand new washer and dryer reside!!!!


People, this is the south west coast of B.C. ! We don't get this kind of snow on a regular basis! We might get 4" once a year, but it's gone the next day ... We've had over 3 feet in the space of less than a week! This is the pile next to the driveway -- Note: I'm 5'5" tall! The last time we had snow for Christmas, was in '96, the year we got married. Apparently, this is the 1st Christmas in over 40 years, that all of Canada had a white Christmas.

Hubby did the bulk of the shoveling, but I did my share, too. It was endless! The above photo is at the beginning of the week, before the next 12" fell! He declared (yet, again!) that this is the last year that he is going to shovel snow -- he says that a snow blower will soon be residing in the tool shed.

Here are my 'boys' on Christmas Eve, getting ready for the visitors. Brinkley absolutely loves the snow and cavorted around like an idiot in it!

Here's our little man with his grandpa -- so cute in his 'big boy' outfit! Rosy cheeks courtesy of upper molars coming through and a head cold, which he kindly passed on to grandma :(

BTW, his mom had been working with him on the ride over to the house. He came running through the door when he saw me and said, wait for it ..."guh-i-ma"! ... I almost cried. I know, pathetic.

From the youngest, to the oldest 'grand', opening their Christmas gifts ... a talking train set for E*than,

A rocker chair for J*osh to plug in all his electronics and listen to his IPod, or play PSP games with surround sound. We handed him the cords and he had the whole thing hooked up lickety-split and soon we were listening to the theme song from "Twilight" (that reference is just for you, Tara!)

C*icely in the "I'mtoocooltoletyouknowthatIreallylovemynewlaptop" phase. The joys of being 15.5 yrs. :P******

Oh yes, there is a little knitting content. Here is my Woodland Shawl, in the "Fiddlehead" colourway from 'The Woolen Rabbit'. It's a semi solid lace weight merino, with subtle colour changes -- love it! Once blocked, all edges will have a lovely scallop to them -- so pretty! And what I like, is that it doesn't require a Kitchener join in the middle of the shawl. I really am not crazy about that, for 2 reasons: 1) I don't like doing that procedure and 2) it's always so evident, even when you do it well! The pattern is well written, easy to follow and easy to memorize, so I can actually watch TV while knitting.

BTW, we rented "Made of Honour" last night, with Patrick Dempsey (Throb!) It was hilarious! Just go rent it.

Happy New Year to you all!