Glorious Snow

I started taking a photography course this winter. Which meant I had even more excuse to go outside in the snow and take pictures.

Elisabeth and Jade spent almost every day outside in the snow. Shoveling, building, playing.

All the GIRLS were very good about shovelling the driveways. The boys were not as helpful.

However, I did ask David to go for a walk with me and he happily obliged.

This is the trail at the end of our road. When the kids were little (and I didn't have that pesky job) we'd walk through here all the time. Now we're lucky if we get out here once a year.

I love winter!

My friend Julius and I have this long running joke about snow. And the fact that we never get any here in the Lower Mainland.

Well, this winter we got our fill. These pictures are from the first week of February.

I have to say, despite the fact that the snow sometimes upset our plans, I have loved it.

For one thing, the kids wanted to play in it. Which pleases me so much more than them playing electronics all day every day.

And it is quite pleasing to look at.

Also, I have the option to work from home. Which means I could stay warm. And dry. And not have to battle the unploughed sidewalks and roadways at work.

I suppose if I really loved my place of work, I might have been there helping to shovel. But I'm also not the fittest lump on the shelf, am I?

Anyway, as you can see, the kids LOVED playing.

Even the big kids.

The kids got an awful lot of snow days, but I still had to work. So they played in our yard. Which is how it should be, and not off adventuring all over the place. I still managed to sneak out and take pictures every now and again.

The snow man the kids built on Grandma's deck - it's been snowed on  and lost his eyes.

We still love sledding and boarding down mum's hill. Or rolling in Larry's case.

Do you know how many belly aches this girl had from eating too much snow?

Me either, but she did.

The ocean in winter

I got it into my head that I NEEDED to see the ocean with the snow.

My family is so accommodating. I'm very lucky.

 We enjoyed a brisk walk and as it turns out, I really just wanted pictures of my daughter.

New Years Traditions

I finally figured out how to get my pictures off the removable hard drive and onto this blog. Don't laugh, sometimes I'm incredibly stupid.

New Years Day we woke up to TONS of snow. The twitterverse was full  of lies about Langley parks all being closed, so we abandoned any idea of having our annual fire at the river. I really can't remember what we did that day (other than text each other complaining about not being at a fire).

But on January 2nd...

We braved the roads. In my memory they were treacherous. Awful. Terrifying. Obviously we've had so much snow and ice since then that they don't seem all that bad anymore.

We arrived at the river and if the campgrounds weren't closed on New Year's Day, they were now. But we snagged the big fire pit and it actually was much nicer. There was sun there for starters. I don't think we would have lasted ten minutes in the shade.

It was windy and very cold, but absolutely beautiful.

Elisabeth chopped wood.

David and Griff bundled up tight and mostly just sat alternately being frozen and eating chips.

They finally decided that it was colder in the quilts than moving around and doing stuff.

Then the kids chased each other around.

We made s'mores.

And that was pretty much that.

It was so cold. But it's tradition.