::are you ready for this?::

Check it out.
So there was yesterday morning:

And yesterday afternoon:


And do you want to see how it looked first thing this morning? Here you go:

WOW!
It snowed all night and now the snow is so deep here. It's amazing. And it's funny because this one of the biggest snows we've experienced, even after living out east and in the midwest. And it was the least hyped by the media! If this snow had been heading towards anywhere else we lived people would be mobbing the grocery store to get supplies and getting ready to hole up for weeks. Funny stuff.

Kris left this morning in the Land Rover because he had a dental surgery scheduled at the hospital at 7AM. He barely made it out of the driveway. The patient didn't make it to the hospital of course. By the time he got done calling all of our patients for the day and rescheduling them, he came home and all the freeways and highways were being closed.
We'll see if we make it out of here this afternoon--we're supposed to be going to Albuquerque for the NM Bowl. We were going to stay the night and go to the game tomorrow. We'll see!

Here are some more snowy scenes for you.
The french doors in the dining room. Poor Sultan can't make it out to use the facilites:

Our high windows in the living room, all plastered:

Max, enjoying his snow day home from school:

Sultan, bummed because Kris left in the Land Rover without him:

The view from the front door:



And the view out the back door onto our weird patio:

I think these little snow dunes are my favorite.

A fun view from Max's bathroom window:


Days like this make me truly appreciate a warm cozy house and other temporal blessings. It's also nice to be the bosses instead of being bossed around--making the call on whether this should be a snow day or not was nice instead of just being forced to go in whether we wanted to or not!
Happy snow day. Looks like it may still be white by Christmas!

::today::

Today was our first big snow storm of the year. It started early in the morning and just kept on, light and steady.
This is how it looked this morning at around nineish.

This is how something else looked around nineish.

I think he wanted me to be doing something besides taking pcitures.

Kris left us with a roaring fire and a big pile of wood. What a sweet husband. The fire makes it really cozy.

I used up all the wood.

And here's how it looked at about four after we picked up Max from school.

Brrrrrrrrr.

::the tree::

On monday morning we set out to find a christmas tree. We were all prepared for the adventure with cold weather gear and snacks. We headed south to the confusing areas on the little map where tree cutting was allowed.
It was a cold cold day.
We were excited and I was a little nervous, hoping we didn't get stuck or something up in the mountains with a brand new little baby and another sweet boy that whom I don't want freezing.

The dudes in the back:


We drove and drove and finally reached one of the forest service roads. We headed up the crazy bumpy road and I sat in the back and held little Sandy's head so I wouldn't have to worry that it would bounce off.

We kept seeing nice trees, but then we would realize that they were HUGE. Like really really big. Our sense of scale was all off in the mountains. We looked and looked and then finally saw a couple of good candidates halfway down a pretty steep gorge. We stopped and Kris went down there to check them out.

We were only supposed to get a tree that was 10 feet or under. We had to eyeball it because even though we remembered everything else, we didn't remember a tape measure.

Baby slept and slept through the whole adventure, thank goodness, because it was awfully cold out there. He was tucked in all warm and cozy and enjoying the extreme vibrations of the land rover.


Here is our tree. We also liked the one to the right.

It looked so small to us after all the others we'd seen on our way.

The scenery:


The crazy boys:


The slightly nervous mom and slightly obedient boy:

Why I'm letting him hold the saw here I'll never know.

Kris had to have Max's help cutting the tree down--they'd been talking about it for quite a while. So Kris rigged up a rather ingenious solution to the problem of the extremely steep bank.

Max looks like he's on his way down from Everest or something.

There they go--Sultan was freaking out. See him there in the picture zooming under the tow rope? He wanted to go down to the tree so bad, but was smart enough to realize it was just too steep for him.
But he was still sad about it.


They cut it down. "TIMBER!!!!" said Max. Then they had to get themselves and the tree back up to the car.
No small task, but Kris can do anything.


Luckily the tree isn't really too heavy. The trunk isn't super thick.

Then they had to figure out what to do next with the dang thing.

And up it went. It was snowing by this time and I wish you could feel the cold air. My hands were freezing!


Taa Daa!!
Then we drove him in a big snowstorm by way of Dairy Queen. Yes, there is a Dairy Queen in the middle of nowhere quite a way south of our house. It's pretty funny.
Sandy stayed asleep until we got home, such a blessing.
Then we got the tree in the house and realized it was HUGE! Definitely at least the 10 feet and probably more like 11. When Kris stuck it in a bucket to wait for our stand it brushed the ceiling, and our ceilings are really high in this house. I couldn't believe how big it was! So funny that our sense of scale was so off.
If only I had a picture of it to show you. Soon enough. It's sitting here waiting for me to put lights on it. Who knows how long it'll take me, especially since I'm going to need a ladder for the top part! But pictures will come.
And that's the story. Pretty epic.

::::

Kris and I are in Santa Fe, NM getting some business done. It's snowy out here! This is for all youse guys who think that NM is hot and full of palm trees. :)

::winter wallop::

I just had to laugh when I saw the title that the news channels were giving to our big storm this weekend. "Winter wallop"? Quite the alliteration.
But it was a big storm, and pretty amazing. It started snowing at about 9PM last night, and it just started slow and subtly. By the time we woke up in the morning at about 8AM there was about a two foot drift up against our sliding glass door. There was lots of fast wind last night, so we had some interesting snow distribution.

Church was cancelled last night, so we were able to be pleased by the snow instead of bummed because we were going to have to go out in it.
Kris and Max went out to start shoveling.

Check out the cars!!


Check out what was hanging off the roof. It kind of feels like we're living in a canyon or a cave--something that nature has carved over time.

And check out the drifts on the neighbors houses. I think they're super interesting looking, especially how the chimney in the house on the left has a blank circle all around it. They really look like frosted gingerbread houses, don't they?

Sul didn't like it. I think he liked it at first, but when he realized how deep it was he was not excited anymore. Here's what happened when I called him to come up on the deck so I could take a picture of him (from inside of course).




He had to build up extreme velocity just to get over the snow, and that's after Max had already blazed a trail for him.
He was very bummed when I didn't let him in.


Kris thought that the snow on the trampoline looked like it was pretty shallow, so I guess he threw Max onto it headfirst. And I guess he disappeared into the depths. Turns out there was tons of snow on the tramp. It just looked shallow because the mat was all bowed low, nearly touching the ground. Good thing Max is a good sport.

Since Max was dying to sled, and there was no way the cars were leaving the driveway, Kris set up a little sledding situation on the back deck.

He made some steps out of the recycling bins, and some sort of ramp off the side.

Recipe for disaster unless dad is holding the sled tight. He survived though, luckily.



Weeeeeeeee.......

Then Max got freezing and came in and poor Kris stayed out for another hour and a half just shoveling shoveling and shoveling. Good thing he's been working out. I think this will count for his workout for the next week.
And Max warmed up.

Yay for hot chocolate and snow and cheery mugs and lazy days. And extra yay for warm houses that keep us dry. I like those.